AsTeR currently uses a MultiVoice synthesizer [Tec91], a serial-line text-to-speech device based on the Dectalk 3.0. The MultiVoice provides independent software control on the volume of the speaker and headphone ports. Since this is currently missing from the Dectalk, AsTeR cannot produce directional speech if a Dectalk is used.
AsTeR is implemented under Lucid Common Lisp/SPARC 4.0.2. AsTeR relies heavily on CLOS support and is presently running on a SPARC IPC with [tex2html_wrap5924]MB of memory. The Common Lisp process communicates with the MultiVoice connected to either of the serial ports, /DEV/TTYA or /DEV/TTYB. It is currently assumed that the Common Lisp process is run on the local workstation.