.TH "speak" "1" "January 1997" "Speak 0.2" "Text-to-Speech" 
.PP 
.SH NAME 
.PP
\fBspeak\fP - send output to text-to-speech service.
.PP 
.SH SYNOPSIS 
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\fBspeak\fP [\fIhostname\fP]
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.SH DESCRIPTION 
.PP
The Text-to-speech package introduces a standard TCP/IP port service for
attaching text-to-speech resources to your network.  These resources can
be used to monitor system status, provide verbal alarms, etc.  This network
service may be accessed by telnetting to a machine running a "speak" server,
or by using the various application utilities, such as \fBspeak\fP.
.PP
 
The \fBspeak\fP program will capture and redirect all standard input to the 
network speech server, such as \fBspo256\fP, running either on the 
local machine ("\fIlocalhost\fP"), or to the server running on the host 
specified as a  command line argument. \fBspeak\fP is normally used to 
terminate a pipe, such as in "\fIcat filename | speak\fP".  The TCP service
port used for the connection is specified in \fI/etc/services\fP.

.PP
While most of the text-to-speech programs are separately written, the
\fBspeak\fP program is normally an alias for the actual server itself,
such as the \fBspo256\fP program.  This was intentional, as future 
versions of speak may drive hardware directly in an alternate usage 
(such as "\fIspeak /dev/ttyxx\fP"), as well as redirecting output to a named 
host.

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.SH SEE ALSO 
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.BR say (1),
.BR down (8),
.BR spo256 (8),
.BR services (7)
.PP 
.SH AUTHOR 
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David Sugar (dyfet@tycho.com)
.PP