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AsTeR: Spoken Math On The Emacspeak Audio Desktop

Dedication

To My Guiding Eyes

In fond memory of Aster who first showed the way for 10 years; to Hubbell and Tilden who ably followed her lead over the next 22+ years!

Overview

The work describing Audio System For Technical Readings (AsTeR) was presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University on Monday, Jan 17, 1994 for my PhD. This release is an updated version of AsTeR using the Software DECTalk.

Implementation

  • AsTeR audio-formats TeX and LaTeX.
  • User interface is implemented in Emacs.
  • The audio-formatter is implemented in Common Lisp (SBCL) and uses the Emacspeak speech-server dtk-soft.
  • Emacs commands call Common Lisp via slime to communicate with AsTeR.

Prerequisites

  • Install Emacspeak 57.0 or later from Github.
  • Install slime and auctex using M-x package-install.
  • Install flex, SBCL and cl-asdf using the linux package manager.
  • Install Software DECTalk from Github.

Building AsTeR

  1. cd <emacspeak> to change to your emacspeak directory.
  2. Get source via git checkout https://github.com/tvraman/aster-math
  3. cd aster-math/lisp && make

Usage

  • Add directory aster-math/ui/ to your Emacs load-path.
  • Run M-x load-library aster; M-x aster.
  • Aster commands are on Emacs prefix-key C-; SPC and C-' a.
  • M-x describe-function aster displays help.
  • Optional: Set environment variable ASTER_TTS to the pulseaudio device you wish to use: e.g., export ASTER_TTS=tts_left will result in AsTeR using the left audio channel for output.

To speak math, send La)TeX to AsTeR from any Emacs buffer.

  1. When editing LaTeX — including from within org-mode buffers.
  2. When browsing Wikipedia pages containing mathematics using Emacs’ EWW browser. (Make sure to first disable shr-discard-aria-hidden).
  3. From Emacs Calculator (calc).
  4. From the Emacs interface to Sage — a symbolic algebra system.
  5. Send a TeX file e.g., etc/demo.tex.
  6. Papers from arxiv.org — see Arxiv.org Accessibility Report
  • Once Aster starts speaking, you can use Aster’s browser to move around.

References

  1. Demo recorded in October 2022.
  2. Demo recorded in 1994.
  3. Brian Hayes: Speaking Of Mathematics, American Scientist, March 1996 — An accessible overview of AsTeR.
  4. Envisioning Speech:Scientific American, Wayte Gibbs, September 1996 — Describes AsTeR, Audio-formatting and Emacspeak.
  5. Proceedings: RFB Math & Science Symposium, May 12 – 13 1994.
  6. PHd Thesis, January 1994.