I don't remember if I posted this to the NFB-RD list; apologies in advance if
I already did so.
Last year, (October) I started writing myself a speech access program for UNIX
so I could run LINUX on my laptop.
I chose to achieve the end result by extending GNU Emacs to speak. What
started off as a small and interesting side project has turned into a good and
robust speech output interface.
(Notice that I don't call it a "screen reader") this is for a good reason.
Emacspeak --my speech output extension-- relies on Emacs' knowledge about the
information being displayed to speak the information correctly, rather than
merely speak the screen.
I now use Emacspeak both on my laptop running Linux, as well as my DecAlpha
workstation at work.
You can download Emacspeak, and also read about it at the following url:
http://www.research.digital.com/CRL/personal/raman/emacspeak/emacspeak.html
For those who have trouble downloading from the WWW, you can also find the
sources at ftp.crl.dec.com in directory /pub/digital/emacspeak.
Finally, to wet your appetite: there is a wonderful WWW browser that runs
inside Emacs, and using it with Emacspeak gives very good spoken feedback for
surfing the WWW.
Appended below is the top-level WWW page describing Emacspeak.
Enjoy,
--Raman
EMACSPEAK --A SPEECH OUTPUT SUBSYSTEM FOR EMACS
* Announcing Emacspeak, a full-fledged speech output interface to Emacs. *
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emacspeak is the first full-fledged speech output system that will allow
someone who cannot see to work directly on a UNIX system. (Until now, the only
option available to visually impaired users has been to use a talking PC as a
terminal.) Emacspeak is built on top of Emacs. Once you start emacs with
emacspeak loaded, you get spoken feedback for everything you do. Your mileage
will vary depending on how well you can use Emacs.There is nothing that you
cannot do inside Emacs:-)
I currently use Emacspeak at work on my DECALPHA workstation running Digital
UNIX. I also use Emacspeak as the only speech output system on my laptop
running Linux. Emacspeak currently supports the new {Dectalk Express} speech
synthesizer, as well as older versions of the Dectalk e.g. the MultiVoice. On
the DECALPHA, you can use it with the software Dectalk. (If you have a
DECALPHA and also have software Dectalk installed at your site, please get in
touch with me and I'll give you some additional code that emacspeak needs to
work with the software Dectalk.)
You need GNU FSF Emacs 19 (version 19.23 or later) and TCLX 7.3B (Extended
TCL) to run Emacspeak. See the Emacspeak distribution for additional details.
See the latest [release notes] to see what is new in the latest
release. Available from the following sites:
FTP: ftp://crl.dec.com/pub/digital/emacspeak/emacspeak.tar.gz
You can also download [Emacspeak (82K)]from this page. Emacspeak currently
provides additional non-speech auditory cues if you have a sound card. The
collection of auditory icons used by Emacspeak are contained in [a tar file
(140 K)]. You need download this only if you have a sound card and intend
turning on auditory icons. The tar archive containing the sounds has been
separated from the main Emacspeak tar archive since the sounds remain the same
across versions.
For a list of frequently asked questions about Emacspeak along with their
answers, see the {Emacspeak FAQ}. Emacspeak comes with full source level
documentation. There is an online info manual as well, but this is still
incomplete.
EMACS SUBSYSTEMS
Emacspeak currently has extensions for many popular Emacs subsystems
including:
o W3: A full-fledged W3 browser [available by FTP]. Emacspeak implements a
voice-lock mode analogous to Emacs' font-locking that allows it to speak
WWW hotlinks using different ~voice personalities~.
o GNUS: The Emacs news reader. Emacspeak provides a fluent extension to
gnus that allows you to listen to Usenet news without taking your
fingers off the four arrow keys.
o VM: The Emacs VM mail reader. Emacspeak works with VM to present email
messages using different voices; Parts of a message that are cited from
a previous message are ~voicified~to produce effective aural
presentations.
o Eterm: The Emacs 19 terminal emulator. (This will be part of Emacs
19.29). You can obtain a beta copy of eterm [via anonymous FTP]. I have
used Emacspeak and Eterm to successfully login to work from my laptop
and interface with running applications on my office workstation
(including running Emacs sessions!).
Emacspeak also works well with Emacs addons like AUCTEX for editing TeX
documents, the Emacs Calculator (CALC --a symbolic algebra system) etc.
Emacspeak works fluently with all Emacs addons; writing an extension makes its
use even more pleasurable. If you would like to write an Emacspeak addon for
your favorite package please get in touch with me so we do not end up
duplicating work.
SUPPORT FOR EMACSPEAK
Emacspeak comes as is, please see the accompanying [Copyright] notice. See the
[README]file for details about this release and how to install Emacspeak on
your system.
I work on Emacspeak in my spare time, and may not be able to answer questions
on Emacspeak immediately. If you do download and use Emacspeak, please
subscribe to the mailing list ~emacspeak@crl.dec.com~by sending a message to ~
emacspeak-request@crl.dec.com~.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*[T. V. Raman] raman@crl.dec.com*
Last modified: Wed Jun 28 20:37:01 1995
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:03 PST