I'm sure it does, but then, how would one do it with speech? With speakup, you still get stuck rebooting, which may not be good in certain situations. Someone on a list suggested a way to get minicom going on a sega dreamcast, but the snag with imbedded stuff is speech or braille, I'd go speech because it's cheaper, but something a little smaller than a dreamcast would be desirable for any practical use. At 12:53 PM 10/18/01 +0100, you wrote: >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 > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Blinux-list@redhat.com >https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > >