Hardware Podcasts

A brief history of talking computers

Oxide and Friends · 31 Aug 2021 · 1h 33m · Episode 12

What this episode covers

Matt Campbell, a blind software engineer and creator of AccessKit, traces the history of accessibility technology from the 1980s to the present, detailing the evolution of speech synthesizers and screen readers. He discusses specific products like the Apple IIe Echo card, DECtalk, JAWS, Emacspeak, and Speakup, explaining how hardware limitations and software architecture shaped the user experience for visually impaired individuals. Campbell highlights the shift from proprietary, expensive solutions to open-source tools like Emacspeak and Linux Speakup, and finally to modern platform-native accessibility APIs and machine learning approaches like Apple's Screen Recognition.

Most relevant to

established companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Control Data Corp
Products
Apple IIe, Echo II, DECtalk, Prose 2000, Keynote Gold, Master Touch, Zoom Text, Talking Moose, outSPOKEN, Window Bridge, pwWebSpeak, Emacspeak, Apple IIGS, JAWS, Microsoft Narrator, Linux Speakup, ZipSpeak, edBrowse, FreedomBox, EsounD, aRts, Gnopernicus, Orca, Microsoft Active Accessibility, AT-SPI, Apple VoiceOver, Google TalkBack, iPhone Screen Recognition, Microsoft UI Automation, AccessKit
Also
Brian Dear, Brodie Lockard, Slackware, GNOME, CORBA, D-Bus

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