Carry a classic reading voice in your pocket. Retroreader is software for the Freenove Media Kit that lets you listen to EPUB ebooks and plain-text files using retro speech synthesizers.
Retroreader was inspired by my introduction to the Road Runner and Book Courier reading machines from Ostrich Software and Springer Design, popular around the turn of the century. Those machines made electronic text portable, tactile and immediate.
Retroreader gives blind readers a low-cost, open-source software stack for taking old, beloved voices on the move. It combines speech engines familiar to long-term screen-reader users with Freenove hardware made for programmers and tinkerers.
Choose from supported speech synthesizers, including OpenEVV (Eloquence), Svox Pico, DECtalk (hardware and software versions), OpenBST (or Keynote Gold), Monologue (Doubletalk's predecessor) and TruVoice builds. The aim is fast, intelligible reading—not an imitation human narrator.
Browse, read, pause, seek and change settings from a compact five-way control, with speech throughout the interface.
Books live on a microSD card. The project is open source, the file layout is inspectable, and the software is designed to be adapted.
Retroreader is experimental software for hobbyist hardware, not a finished commercial appliance. Expect rough edges, keep backups, and join the project if you enjoy testing or building accessible technology.