Tips and Software for Blind Linux Users

Speech and Braille CSombined

There is already speech (Emacsspeak , Screader ) and Braille (BRLTTY) software, but no combined solution. This was the reason for me to start the development of a combined version. Instead of reinventing the wheel, as much as possible has been used from existing software:

BRLTTY-2.0:

Is a program to control a Braille terminal. It supports different hardware connected to the serial ports and gets the screen content from the kernel (/dev/vcs to be more exact) or from a shared segment filled by screader . Limited speech support in BRLTTY allows to read the current line when you have a program that reads ascii from standard input and converts it to spoken text.

HADIFIX /MBROLA:

HADIFIX is a text to phoneme converter (for German language only), the first stage of a text to speech converter, MBROLA is a synthesizer to generate speech from the phonemes.

To create a complete speech solution, only some missing parts have to be added:

• It should be possible to control the speech output with the standard keyboard, without using the keys on the braille terminal. This makes it necessary to read all keyboard input by BRLTTY. Unfortunately, there is no kernel interface for doing this. A small kernel patch (key-sniff ) adds this interface to 2.0.x kernels.
• HADIFIX and MBROLA are not designed for interactive speech applications. A shell around these two, called Softspeech allows flushing the audio buffer etc..
• BRLTTY has to be extended to use keyboard input. This is still under construction, but you can already download the development snapshot, called SBRLTTY.
• The original version of freephone has a bug, a version without that one bug can be downloaded: freephone.

Other Software for Linux

• Blinux: FAQ
• A general speech solution is Screader .
• The Ultrasonix project tries to bring X to blind users.
• Jos Lemmens has written a parallel port version of BRLTTY.
• Another speech solution: Speakup (a kernel patch for 2.1.125 and above)

More Links

• Speech output for emacs: Emacsspeak
• Hompage of newsgroup comp.speech
• Linguistics / Phonetics FAQ
• The Festival speech system.
• BLINUX Documentation and Developmenen Project
• Blinux Info
• INSB
• Blinux CD-ROM
• linux-access Homepage

Links to Vendors

• Henter-Joyce speech and Braille for Windows95
• MicroTalk, a synthesizer
• Dolphin, synthesizer und software
• ALVA, produces Braille terminals.
• Baum, located in Germany, sells hardware and software

How to Configure Programs for Speech and Braille

lynx, pine (under construction)

butenuth@uni-paderborn.de