Thank you, Tim, for a wonderful tribute, to which I'll add a footnote. Emacspeak is not only great software; it's also great research. The papers describing Emacspeak demonstrated what was possible at a time when, let's recall, people were still concerned with off-screen models and whether Microsoft would make Windows 95 accessible. Accessibility APIs existed but were primarily means of providing information to a screen reader about on-screen widgets (arguably they still are, although the Web has expanded that role somewhat). Contrast that with the "speech-enabling approach", audio formatting (pioneered in ASTER and then developed to great effect in Emacspeak) and true access to applications, not just to on-screen interfaces. Then came aural CSS, which regrettably we still don't have in widely available browsers, followed by further innovations. It's the kind of research that, for some of us at least, inspired enormously and changed the conversation for ever and for the better. Thank you, Raman, for the great software and the extraordinary research contributions - and I know you have more in store over the coming decades.
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