A brief history of talking computers

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: August 30th, 2021

A brief history of talking computers

We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for August 30, 2021.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on August 30th included special guest Matt Campbell, as well as MattSci, TVRaman, Jessamyn West and Dan Cross. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

• Brian Dear’s The Friendly Orange Glow
  • Brodie Lockard created amazing software on PLATO
  • Control Data Corp Homework
• [@2:47](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=167) Matt’s intro
  • Deane Blazie created TotalTalk, a speaking terminal. See his 2004 interview.
  • Apple IIe computer and the Echo II speech synthesizer card.
• [@4:15](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=255) The Echo ][ sound sample
  • Wargames computer: GREETINGS PROFESSOR FALKEN. Listen > SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?
    > Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?
    > …
    > Is this a game or is it real?
    > WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
    > …
    > What’s it doing?
    > It’s learning…
    > …
    > A STRANGE GAME.
    > THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS
    > NOT TO PLAY.
• [@7:46](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=466)
  • Prose 2000 sample
  • DECtalk audio sample
• [@12:14](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=734) Apple to PC
  • Keynote Gold, Master Touch, Zoom Text
• [@14:53](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=893) Keynote Gold sample
  • Talking Moose. Watch a sample.
• [@17:17](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1037) GUI screen readers
  • outSPOKEN used QuickDraw
  • Window Bridge 1992
• [@21:58](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1318) Meeting another sight impaired person on a MUD
  • pwWebSpeak
  • Emacspeak
• [@26:44](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1604) Early programming experiences
  • Apple IIGS
• [@28:47](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1727) Emacspeak user base
• [@31:34](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1894) Things were getting better on the Windows side..
  • JAWS, patch parody sample
  • Microsoft Narrator
• [@36:12](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=2172) Linux
  • Speakup
  • Mixing multiple sound streams, hardware limitations
  • Slackware
  • ZipSpeak by Matthew Campbell
• [@44:53](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=2693) Editors for the visually impaired?
  • ed text editor
  • Edbrowse
• [@49:36](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=2976) Working on accessibility (a11y) for pay
  • FreedomBox
  • GNOME EsounD
  • KDE aRts
  • Gnopernicus
  • Orca
• [@57:46](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=3466)
  • Microsoft Active Accessibility
  • AT-SPI
  • CORBA, D-Bus
• [@1:03:11](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=3791) Handheld devices
  • Apple VoiceOver
  • Google TalkBack
  • iPhone Screen Recognition article
• [@1:08:09](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=4089) What should software engineers know about accessibility?
  • Use a mature UI framework!
  • Microsoft UI Automation is the successor to MSAA.
• AccessKit by today’s speaker Matt Campbell!
• [@1:12:34](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=4354) DECtalk samples!
• [@1:15:25](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=4525) One of the most important settings a blind person will want to change in their speech synthesizer is how fast it talks.
  • JAWS parody clip
• Alt text image captions

Topical recent conference presentation: - Emily Shea (2019) Voice Driven Development video

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!