Karen, because I'm curious, what version of DOS are you using? I ask because of your comment on memory. I know I read something about DOS development since the old days when I relied on it, but saw nothing about tis non-visual usability and had no strong drive to dive into it. Al -----Original Message----- From: blinux-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:blinux-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Karen Lewellen Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 12:55 PM To: Linux for blind general discussion Subject: Re: some bees nest stirring, was just how much can you do with? lol! it is all a matter of how one wants to spend the energy. YOutube is not the only place for video content, and Tim indicated that I may not be able to say attend a webnir live in Linux either. but honestly I have been successfully using broadband for years now...I have more memory in my dos machine then likely is in this Linux box, and I do what I need to so there are no memory barriers. No. big. deal. for me because it is important. It is also worth it to me having my machines built instead of buying them off the shelf. I know people who have gone through 10 or 12 computers to my three or four. I know first hand from my experience that the so called effortless Linux install is a joke. I know first hand based on my personal experience that I can do easily what I desire to do in DOS with a little effort. this is 100% my personal experience, and I would never suggest it will be anyone Else's. Your Linux experience clearly varies, just as y dos one varies from yours. Neither are discounted by the other, they are just different. Karen On Tue, 5 Mar 2013, Tony Baechler wrote: > Also, I forgot to mention that I don't think DOS works very well with > broadband, or at least I never got it to work. Even if you find a > packet driver for your network card and actually get the Lynx port to > work, you'll be limited to fairly slow download speeds just due to the > fact that DOS has memory limitations and is not multitasking. A > multitasking OS can dedicate a process just to downloading and has a > lot better memory management. Where this applies to you is getting > back to things like YouTube, where you really can't use a graphical > browser in DOS and would need to download the video locally. Also, > since the packet driver itself takes memory and Lynx uses quite a bit > of memory, not to mention your screen reader needing a good chunk, you'll rapidly lock up your system just due to the 640 KB limitation. > You can load some things in upper memory and some things run in > protected mode, but TSRs don't as I understand it and the amount of > upper memory is also limited due to DOS limitations. Taking the > youtube-dl script, it requires Python. I think there might be an > ancient version of Python for DOS, but it's probably too old to work, > and again you're back to running out of memory as any modern interpreter will take a lot. > > As a final note, if you ever get a modern machine with a plug and play > network card, DOS won't work with it because it won't have a static IRQ. > > On 3/5/2013 1:21 AM, Tony Baechler wrote: >> OK, a couple of quick thoughts, based on my own experience. Yes, you >> can run Lynx, etc from DOS. However, it's much, much slower and >> requires messin around with packet drivers and dial-up networking. >> Linux has that built-in automatically and almost always just works. >> I never got Lynx to run in plain DOS because I couldn't find a >> packet driver and TCP/IP software for my network card, which is one >> of the big reasons why I switched to Windows 98 and the command >> prompt. The second issue is that, due to DOS memory limitations, the >> ports will have a lot less features unless they use djgpp and a DOS >> extender to get around the 640 KB limit. That's called protected >> mode and again, Linux doesn't have that limitation. Finally, Lynx at >> least used direct screen writes, so Vocal-Eyes didn't automatically >> read the screen without a set file. In Linux and Cygwin, it was able >> to read fine on its own because it used BIOS writes. Lynx in Linux >> is literally at least twice as fast as DOS as I'm sure you've seen >> from Shellworld. >> >> On 3/4/2013 11:03 AM, Karen Lewellen wrote: >> > Still if elinks and mplayer exist ported for DOS, why go through >> > the extreme mayhem of finding someone local enough to learn >> > speakup and ora and so forth to teach me in the first place? >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Blinux-list mailing list >> Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx >> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > > -- > Have a good day, > Tony Baechler > tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx > > _______________________________________________ > Blinux-list mailing list > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > > _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list