Hi All, Discussions recently about serial access to Linux, as well as Carl Dahlke's work on kernel adapters made me think once more about whether it wouldn't be possible with today's technology to re-explore the idea of braille/speech using access via expansion slots on PC's. Admittedly my understanding of how this works, and indeed of the hardware side of things in general means that I can't actually hazard much of a suggestion as to the way forward on this. My prompt for thinking about this was that by pure chance, I still happened to have a hardware driven Braillex display connected to a machine I was trying to install Linux on, that I hadn't realised would work with Linux. After several posts to this list earlier in the year, I was very grateful to receive helpful suggestions on how to get this working, and it is really so much easier to use, and gives acess so much earlier in the boot/install process that it seems a shame to abandon it without some sort of discussion about revisiting this solution. The hardware solution became more or less obsolete for Windows access, when screens could no longer be relied on to be a fixed size, (although thinking about it, I'm not sure why this should have been such a problem). For 25-line X 80-column screens, its very hard to beat. When I switch on my machine, I see the memory check, and BIOS password prompt, and then all the information even before the kernel is booted. Even though I've tried brltty, and found it to be an excellent piece of software, it still doesn't provide the snappy response to braille navigation functions as the hardware solution. Obviously the disadvantages are pretty numerous as well, though I'm not sure how many of these are features of the age of the technology. You have to install a video card which is compatible with the Brailex interface card. The display is then driven vai a cable which connects to the braillex card rather than to one of the standard ports. The keyboard connects to the machine via the Braillex, so that cursor routing can be carried out via the keyboard cable. All of which means that its certainly not as easy to walk up to a machine and set up access to it, as it would be using brltty or speakup etc. Anyway, this seems to have turned into vague meanderings rather than any specific suggestions, but I'm interested to know if anyone else thinks the hardware solution still has some miles left in it. Regards, Tim Pennick