Emacspeak

A free, open-source speech output system built on top of the Emacs text editor that provides complete auditory access to a computing environment for blind and visually impaired users. Created by T. V. Raman in 1994 and still actively maintained, Emacspeak pioneered the concept of direct speech access — making applications speak their content semantically rather than reading the screen. Because Emacs can serve as a platform for email, web browsing, programming, file management, and virtually any computing task, Emacspeak effectively provides speech access to an entire desktop environment. Emacspeak is notable for using "speech fonts" that map visual text formatting to different voice characteristics, and for being one of the earliest demonstrations that open-source accessibility tools could match commercial screen readers.