The FESTIVAL speech system is now available for plug and play install
under the free Linux operating system. FESTIVAL is an "egg laying wool
milk pig of a speech synthesizer" which is widely configurable.

You only need a sound card. No extra hardware synthesizer needed.
FESTIVAL can be handled through its user shell or through command line by
piping ASCII files to FESTIVAL. You even can  use MBROLA synthesizer
software for speech output.

FESTIVAL is free, you don't have to pay anything. Full source code is
available. You can install precompiled binaries or compile the source code
on your computer. FESTIVAL comes as archives in RPM file format (binary or
source), as precompiled bin.tar.gz files or as source packages.

FESTIVAL is usable very well as a text reader. If you want to use it
as a screen reader for interactive action, you'll need a fast machine.

Here now comes the FESTIVAL announcement, forwarded from
comp.os.linux.announce.


Lend Linux your ear,
have fun and
Enjoy!

Hans

Hans Zoebelein             * You are interested in Linux blind support?
[log in to unmask]    * Join the blinux mailing list and mail to:
 Check out Blinux Project: * [log in to unmask]
 http://www.leb.net/blinux * with subject line: subscribe

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 97 14:13:40 EST
From: Digestifier <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Linux-Announce Digest #801

Linux-Announce Digest #801, Volume #2            Sun, 26 Oct 97 14:13:40 EST

Contents:
  [stuff omitted]
  Festival Speech Synthesis System: 1.2.1 (Alan W Black)
  [stuff omitted]


From: [log in to unmask] (Alan W Black)
Subject: Festival Speech Synthesis System: 1.2.1
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 16:50:53 GMT

=====BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE=====


          Festival Speech Synthesis System version 1.2.1
                 (and Edinburgh Speech Tools 1.0.1)

The Festival Speech Synthesis System is a general multi-lingual
text to speech system for Unix platforms.  It is written in C++, and
includes a Scheme-based scripting language.  Included with Festival
are lexicons and voices that together form a whole text to speech
system, for English (British and American), and Castillian Spanish.

Festival was developed at the Centre for Speech Technology Research,
University of Edinburgh.

Copying:

This version of Festival is free for research, educational and
individual use only.  It may not be used for any commercial purpose
without prior written agreement of the authors.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------

The full C/C++ source distribution including British and American
English voices and a Spanish voice is available from:

   ftp://ftp.cstr.ed.ac.uk/pub/festival/1.2.1/
or
   ftp://leb.net/pub/blinux/festival/cstr.mirror/

Binary versions for Linux (in RPM and straight tar form) are
available from:

   ftp://ftp.cstr.ed.ac.uk/pub/festival/Linux-1.2.1/
or
   ftp://leb.net/pub/blinux/festival/blinux/

A US mirror site may be added to this soon.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------

Further information including an on-line demo of the synthesis system,
and pointers to related Festival work is available through the Festival
home page:
   http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival.html

The Linux binary release was prepared by Hans Zoebelein of the BLINUX
documentation project (http://leb.net/blinux/), their work includes
a screen reader for the visually impaired using the Festival system.

Specific thanks go to Hans Zoebelein and Rob Clarke for getting
a Linux release ready for distribution.

- --

Alan W Black                            email: [log in to unmask]
Centre for Speech Technology Research   http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/~awb
University of Edinburgh                 tel:   (44) 131 650 2787
80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, UK          fax:   (44) 131 650 6351

[other announcements omitted]

----- End forwarded message -----