MailTalk, The E-Mail Reader That Talks

PUBLIC RELEASE

MailTalk is a program designed for sight-impaired individuals that sends and receives E-Mail using very little system resources.

I found that many E-Mail programs out on the market today, even speech-enabled ones, are very clumsy for the sight-impaired to use.  MailTalk looks to provide a very easy step-by-step question/answer interface so sight-impaired users can have incoming mail read to them over their computer’s speakers, as well as an easy interface to send mail to friends and family.

You will need any typical computer on the market today.  Windows 2000 or XP required.  At least 32 MB of Memory.

  1. You’ll need the Microsoft SAPI4 Speech Suite installed before you run the software.  You may download it for free from Microsoft here (40 MB Download).
  2. You’ll need Windows Scripting Host installed.  You may download it for free from here (less than 1 MB Download).
  3. Click here to download MailTalk (ZIP Archive).  Unzip the archive into a folder of your choice.
  4. Edit the MAILTALK.CFG file.
    On the first line, enter your name.  Example: Brian Klier
    On the second line, type your E-Mail Address.  Example:
    On the third line, type your SMTP Server Name.  Example: smtp.mymailserver.com
    On the fourth line, type your POP3 Server Name.  Example: pop3.mymailserver.com
    On the fifth line, type your POP3 Username.
    On the sixth line, type your POP3 Password.
  5. If you are using Dial-up, you must dial your Internet Connection first before running MailTalk.  To automate this process, you may edit RECVMAIL.BAT and SENDMAIL.BAT
  6. To run MailTalk, there are two batch files:
    RECVMAIL.BAT downloads and starts reading incoming mail.
    SENDMAIL.BAT allows you to create and send a new E-Mail message.

MailTalk is Freeware.  BLAT and GETMAIL are two other public domain programs that are used in the operation of MailTalk.  Both are included in their entirety in ZIP archives as requested.

I would love to hear from you if you enjoy the software!  E-Mail me at

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