Emacspeak was originally developed in late 1994 and released as Open Source in May 1995. Since then, the system has been regularly updated every six months to provide an up-to-date Audio Desktop. Here is a brief overview of some of the significant aspects of the system, and the lessons learnt from its development and use. The work on Emacspeak was presented at CHI96 and the co-located Assets96 conference in Vancouver, BC. This overview is being written nearly 15 years later to trace the impact of the work.