Redstart Systems

Note from Kim:

I’ve been using speech input for more than three decades after a bout with repetitive strain injuries in my hands.

For a long time I used Dragon Pro Individual along with Utter Command, an add-on I developed that allows you to say command phrases. I also trained people to use speech input efficiently.

Redstart Systems’ Utter Command was a Dragon add-on I made. It made command-and-control more comfortable and efficient. Commands were easy to remember use and could be combined into command phrases. It also included a mouse tool that allowed you to click anywhere using a single command.

More recently I’ve switched to Talon, freely available speech input software that works on the Mac and PC, is more stable than Dragon, and has a great volunteer community behind it. The folks who use it are mostly programmers and it’s optimized for programming.

I’ve written a set of freely-available Utter-Command-style commands that let me write and control my computer using Talon speech. This was a much easier lift than writing Utter Command for Dragon because Talon is a community effort and the people developing Talon also use it. Feel free to contact me for more information.

Here’s a nice take on Human-Machine Grammar and Utter Command from James Stout’s Hands-Free Coding blog. Stout is a key contributor to Talon.

Here’s more about Utter-Command-style speech control:

Grammar

Rules

Words

Knowledge Base

Here’s the speech blog I wrote during the Redstart Systems days: Patch on Speech Blog

(The original Utter Command is no longer available, but you can read about it on the legacy site.

Here’s a video showing Utter Command in action. The Utter Command documentation is at the bottom of the UC Knowledge Base page.)

The text and slides from the presentation I gave at AccessU include my thoughts on using speech input: Including Speech Input Users: What’s frustrating, what’s needed – 2018 update (PDF, slides)
AccessU, May 16, 2018

And here’s some more background:

Here’s the home page of the archived Redstart Systems site.