Java is not inherently GUI ... there is a GUI building API (Swing), but you can compile java on the command line. There is also an accessibility API for Java, which is supposed to allow alternative access to the graphical Swing world, although I haven't tried it. BTW Java applets are only one facet of Java, which I think is over emphasized. Applets have a numver of real problems, especially browser implemnentations of the necessary APIs (inconsitencies). I work on Java all the time and I never recommend applets. Instead I recommend servlets generating web pages for most user interfaces. One nice thing is that FreeTTS implements the JSAPI (Java Speech API) with the help of Flite, so it's easy to make talking Java apps. However, this is onlt speech synthesis, the recognition stuff is not done yet. Last I heard there are plans to implement the recognition part of JSAPI using Sphinx. I used to work for Sun, JavaSoft no less, they are good engineers ... if you think that Java is lacking in accessibility, I encourage you to try contacting their accessibility folks ... Keep in mind that Java does not equal applets nor GUI ... Swing is just part of java ... most of the Java I have done is not graphical ... See this ... http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/accessibility.html -- Doug
