References in this section are taken directly from the Linux Software map which can be found in all standard places for Linux documentation and which lists almost all of the software available for Linux.
Emacspeak is the software side of a speech interface to Linux. Any
other character based program, such as a WWW browser, or telnet
or another editor can potentially be used within emacspeak. The
main difference between it and normal screen reader software for such
operating systems as DOS is that it also has a load more extra
features. It is based in the emacs text editor.
A text editor is a program which allows you to change the contents of a file, for example, adding new information to a letter. Emacs is in fact far beyond a normal text editor, and so this package is much more useful than you might imagine. You can run any other program from within emacs, getting any output it generates to appear in the emacs terminal emulator. The advantage though, is that Emacspeak can understand the layout of the screen and can intelligently interpret the meaning of, for example, a calendar, which would just be a messy array of numbers otherwise. The originator of the package manages to look after his own Linux machine entirely, doing all of the administration from within emacs.
B.Begin3
Title: Emacspeak
Version: 3.52
Entered-date: 04JUL95
Description: Emacspeak an Emacs extension to provide
complete spoken feedback to a visually impaired user.
Requires a speech synthesizer.
I'm visually impaired
I currently use Emacspeak on my laptop.
Note-- You are not restricted to just Emacs --emacspeak
provides spoken access
to everything you can do from a terminal.
Keywords: Speech Access, Screen Reading,
Access for Visually Impaired Users.
Author: raman@crl.dec.com (T. V. Raman)
Maintained-by: raman@crl.dec.com (T. V. Raman)
Primary-site: ftp://crl.dec.com:/pub/digital/emacspeak
85K emacspeak-3.52.tar.gz
150K sounds.tar
Alternate-site: http://www.research.digital.com/CRL/personal/raman/emacspeak/emacspeak.html
Original-site: Implemented originally for Linux
Platforms: Dectalk Synthesizer, GNU Emacs 19, TCLX (Extended TCL)
Copying-policy: GPL
End
This is a program for running a serial port Braille terminal.
22 March 1996: The authors hope to make the first official release,
version 1.0, sometime in the next few months. This version will
support Alva B.V.'s ABT3 series and Telesensory Systems Inc.'s
PowerBraille Navigator series displays, but support for Blazie
Engineering's Braille Lite will be discontinued, as it is not really
designed to be a Braille display and so does not have the necessary
features. In the meantime, if you have an Alva or TSI display and
want to use BRLTTY, contact the maintainer,
Nikhil Nair <nn201@cus.cam.ac.uk>.
Begin3
Title: BRLTTY - Access software for Unix for a blind person
using a soft Braille terminal
Version: 0.22, 22SEP95
Entered-date: 24SEP95
Description: BRLTTY is a daemon which provides access to a Unix console
for a blind person using a soft Braille display (see the
README file for a full explanation).
BRLTTY only works with text-mode applications.
We hope that this system will be expanded to support
other soft Braille displays, and possibly even other
Unix-like platforms.
Keywords: Braille console access visually impaired blind
Author: nn201@cam.ac.uk (Nikhil Nair)
jrbowden@bcs.org.uk (James Bowden)
Maintained-by: nn201@cam.ac.uk (Nikhil Nair)
Primary-site: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/utils/console
30kb brltty-0.22.tar.gz (includes the README file)
5kb brltty-0.22.README
Alternate-site:
Original-site:
Platforms: Linux (kernel 1.1.92 or later), not X/graphics.
Tieman B.V.'s CombiBraille (25/45/85 cell),
(with no support for the parallel interface or
in-built speech synthesizer;
Blazie Engineering's Braille Lite (not recommended).
Copying-policy: GPL
End
This is a speech synthesiser listed in the Linux Software Map. It doesn't apparently work well enough for use by a visually impaired person. Use hardware instead, or improve it.. a free speech synthesiser would be really really useful.
xocr is a package which implements optical character recognition for
Linux. As with Rsynth, I don't think that this will be acceptable as
a package for use as a sole means of input by a visually impaired
person. I suspect that the algorithm used means that it will need to
be watched over by someone who can check that it is reading correctly.
I would love to be proved wrong.
xzoom is a screen magnifier, in the same vein as xmag,
but sufficiently better to be very useful to a visually impaired
person. The main disadvantages of xzoomare that it can't magnify
under its self, that some of the key controls aren't compatible with
fvwm, the normal Linux window manager and that it's default
configuration doesn't run over a network (this can be fixed at some
expense to speed). Apart from that though, it's excellent. It does
continuous magnification which allows you to, for example, scroll a
document up and down, whilst keeping the section you are reading
magnified. Alternatively, you can move a little box around the
screen, magnifying the contents and letting you search for the area
you want to see. xzoom is also available as an rpm from the
normal RedHat sites, making it very easy to install for people using
the rpm system (such as Redhat users).
Begin3
Title:<sect1>xzoom<label id="xzoom">
<P><tt/xzoom/ is a screen magnifier, in the same vein as <tt/xmag/,
but sufficiently better to be very useful to a visually impaired
person. The main disadvantages of <tt/xzoom/are that it can't magnify
under its self, that some of the key controls aren't compatible with
<tt/fvwm/, the normal Linux window manager and that it's default
configuration doesn't run over a network (this can be fixed at some
expense to speed). Apart from that though, it's excellent. It does
continuous magnification which allows you to, for example, scroll a
document up and down, whilst keeping the section you are reading
magnified. Alternatively, you can move a little box around the
screen, magnifying the contents and letting you search for the area
you want to see. <tt/xzoom/ is also available as an rpm from the
normal RedHat sites, making it very easy to install for people using
the rpm system (such as Redhat users).
<tscreen><verb>
Begin3
Title: xzoom
Version: 0.1
Entered-date: Mar 30 1996
Description: xzoom can magnify (by integer value) rotate
(by a multiple if 90 degrees) and mirror about
the X or Y axes areas on X11 screen
and display
them in it's window.
Keywords: X11 zoom magnify xmag
Author: Itai Nahshon <nahshon@best.com>
Maintained-by: Itai Nahshon <nahshon@best.com>
Primary-site: sunsite.unc.edu
probably in /pub/Linux/X11/xutils/xzoom-0.1.tgz
Platforms: Linux+11. Support only for 8-bit depth.
Tested only in Linux 1.3.* with the XSVGA 3.1.2
driver.
Needs the XSHM extension.
Copying-policy: Free
End
nfbtrans is a multi-grade braille translation program
distributed by the National Federation for the Blind in the U.S.A. It
is released for free in the hope that someone will improve it.
Languages covered are USA English, UK English, Spanish, Russian,
Esperanto, German, Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek, though others
could be added just by writing a translation table. Also covered are
some computer and math forms. I have managed to get it to compile
under Linux, though, not having a braille embosser available at the
present moment I have not been able to test it.
NFBtrans is available from ftp://nfb.org/ftp/nfb/braille/nfbtrans/. After downloading it, you will have to compile it.
I have returned this patch to the maintainer of NFBtrans and he says that he has included it, so if you get a version later than 740, you probably won't have to do anything special. Just follow the instructions included in the package.
unzip -L NFBTR740.ZIP #or whatever filename you have
mv makefile Makefile
Next save the following to a file (e.g. patch-file)
*** nfbpatch.c.orig Tue Mar 12 11:37:28 1996
--- nfbpatch.c Tue Mar 12 11:37:06 1996
***************
*** 185,190 ****
--- 185,193 ----
return (finfo.st_size);
} /* filelength */
+ #ifndef linux
+ /* pretty safe to assume all linux has usleep I think ?? this should be
+ done properly anyway */
#ifdef SYSVR4
void usleep(usec)
int usec;
***************
*** 195,200 ****
--- 198,204 ----
} /* usleep */
#endif
+ #endif
void beep(count)
int count;
and run
patch < patch-file
then type
make
and the program should compile.