Hm the second english patch link doesn't work for me; it produces a 404 error. I've been having a problem getting the game to talk so hopefully using the english patch will solve that.

Hmm, looking at my system tray, it still isn't done.
It seems to have slowed by about 10 kbps, which puts it up to another hour.

I don't think the english patch will make it any easier for you to find the sapi setting, though.

The issue is that sometimes it will ask you if you want to update before going to the main menu, and you want to pick no (I'm assuming that's the second option, anyway).

So, basically, if you skip the logo, and it doesn't immediately start playing the main menu music, it's asking you to update. Press enter, down, enter, and it will take you to the main menu.

Either way, once at the main menu, press down twice, then enter. This takes you to game settings.
Then, press down twice, and enter again, to go to screen reader settings.
Press down until you no longer hear the menu select sound, and that is selecting sapi5.
Press enter, and it will ask you to select a voice. I think it puts you on the default voice, but if you press up or down, it will cycle through the available voices and announce the name. It might take a couple seconds to load at first.
Once you pick a voice, it will ask you to set the rate, pitch and volume. Press enter when you're done with each of those, and it will take you back to game settings. The last option in the settings menu is save settings. Press that, and you're back at the main menu.

Dark, you are right of course. I'll probably have to look at developing something more simple for the contest, and it wouldn't necessarily have to be a side-scroller either.

There are some Atari games I haven't played in years that would be cool to recreate. One of them is the Star Wars Death Star game where you play as Luke Skywalker and you have to complete a number of battles against tie fighters and on the final level fly your x-wing into the Death star and blow up the main reactor core.  Its basically nothing more than an Atari version of the final battle from Star Wars: A New Hope, and I could complete that easy enough.

Even better is to take that original concept and convert it to 3d so you can ascend and descend as well as turn, roll, and perform more complex starfighter maneuvers. Any thoughts?

You may be right. I'd have to ask Philip about that. Still my point that I need to cut my ideas down to something more simple for the contest  remains.