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Date:      Sun, 17 Aug 1997 18:44:49 +0200
From:      "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs@freebsd.org>
To:        freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org
Cc:        Alan W Black <awb@cstr.ed.ac.uk>, John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>, David Holloway <daveh@tamis.com>, StevenR362@aol.com, Ernst Winter <ewinter@lobo.muc.de>, Hans-Joachim Gurt <gurt@nacamar.net>, Gwyn <100337.3572@compuserve.com>
Subject:   Re: blind 
Message-ID:  <199708171644.SAA08315@desk.jhs.no_domain>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 05 Aug 1997 20:36:02 CDT." <Pine.BSF.3.96.970805202042.17562g-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu> 

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This is a follow up just to thank & summarise everyone's responses
& forwarding of my earlier mail:
> 
> > A retired ex programmer in Munich has gone blind ...
> > Does FreeBSD have any software available to let him work on a Unix box ?

I've just collated the info so far, I'll discuss it with the blind programmer
& other local friends, & see what can be done,
personaly I'm only thinking in terms of quick solutions, the odd source
code port maybe, but I've no development time available unfortunately,
so I'm hoping if I can get something minimal up, then the blind programmer
can improve it, he's intellectually capable, just I/O limited.

I guess there may be more follow up, so I'll keep a copy of these notes on
	http://www.freebsd.org/~jhs/txt/blind.asc

=========

From: Alan W Black <awb@cstr.ed.ac.uk>
I distribute a free (for non-commercial use) speech synthesizer
for FreeBSD (and most Unix machines) 
   http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival.html Our system simply
requires a standard sound card (8 bit or 16 bit).  The synthesis is
all in software, but he'll need more than just a synthesizer, he'll
need the front end too.  I suggest you look at the Linux Blind User
Group who are one on my mirror sites.  That seems to be the best place
to start
   http://leb.net/blinux/
As I'm sure you know the code for Linux and FreeBSD is pretty similar.
Alan W Black                            email: awb@cstr.ed.ac.uk
Centre for Speech Technology Research   http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/~awb
University of Edinburgh                 tel:   (44) 131 650 2787
80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, UK          fax:   (44) 131 650 6351
---
From: Hans-Joachim Gurt <gurt@nacamar.net>
you/he might want to have a 'look' at 
Date: 5 Aug 1997 23:06:57 -0400
From: Michael De La Rue <access-howto@ed.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.answers
Subject: Linux Access HOWTO (part 1/1)
and:
From: Jim Van Zandt <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.answers
Subject: Linux Emacspeak HOWTO (part 1/1)
  This document describes how a blind user can use Linux with a speech
  synthesizer to replace the video display.
---
From: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>
here is something if you don't mind living in emacs...
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/raman/emacspeak/emacspeak.html
http://leb.net/blinux/

If you know *what* needs to be done (i.e. what constitutes a
useful screen reader), actually implementing it shouldn't be that
difficult.  It seems to me that it should be possible to hack up
window(1) or GNU screen to communicate with speech synthesis
software or hardware.
---
From: David Holloway <daveh@tamis.com>
start with /home/ports/audio/rsynth which is a text->speech synthesizer.
---
From: StevenR362@aol.com
Check out the usenet group comp.os.linux.announce and search for
B_linux.  Apparently, there is an entire project hosted at some university.
I'm sorta leaning towards saying Duke, that is working on linux systems
and software for the blind and handicapped.  Check out the announce
message, it is posted to ...linux.announce about every six or eight weeks.
They have some X based multimedia solution under developement and
are looking for active participants to further the project.
----
From: Ernst Winter <ewinter@lobo.muc.de>
... some ideas on local s/w h/w help ... 
----


Julian
--
Julian H. Stacey       jhs@freebsd.org         http://www.freebsd.org/~jhs/



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