Re: Concerning BLinux project

["T.Pospisek's MailLists" <tpo2@spin.ch>]

On Sun, 6 Dec 1998, Hans Zoebelein wrote:

> Wha about these CX interface libs? 

I don't really get the importance of those.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 08:28:34 -0500 (EST)
> From: Corbin <ac1164@messiah.edu>
> To: zocki@goldfish.cube.net
> Cc: aaron corbin <ac1164@mailman.messiah.edu>
> Subject: Concerning BLinux project
> 
> Hi, I'm a senior computer science major at Messiah College.  I'm in the
> stages of trying to find a senior project.  If I could write something
> that would contribute to the BLinux project, that would be great.  But I
> don't really know what to write (I just found the website two days ago),
> and not being blind, I don't even know what would be really
> useful.  Is there anything you could think of that *needs* to be written,
> and (sadly) is novel enough that I could use it as a senior project?  Are
> you the right person to be asking this?  Should I ask someone else?

Hi Aaron,

your email has been forwarded to the blinux mailing list by Hans. Here's
my opinion on the topic:

The goal of the blinux project is the availability of a linux system that
can be perfectly used >without< the need to see.

In the process of trying to set up such a system I have come accross the
problem, that there are far too many different parts around that
>don't fit together<. You've got a speech output system for emacs called
emacspeak. For this you have drivers for braille terminals, for speech
cards and for software synthesisers. There are screen-reader packages
which themselves need yet other drivers. There are kernel patches
which enable feedback through speech and/or braille which use still other
drivers.

In short: it's a mess.

Peoples efforts are lost becase they go on reinventing the wheel
(interfaces/drivers/interpreters) again and again. What I feel is
>>badly<< needed is an effort to see through the available work, get a
picture of what's around, have a look at research and existing development
(Java's speech interface, Microsoft's, the Freespeech interface, etc.) and
propose:

- a simple and generic text to speech/braille interface

I have hints on this list, that there might be something like that in
on the way (at least the seeds of it). See for example Roger Buthenut's
recent postings on this list.

The interface >>really<< needs to be generic enough to be able to adapt to
a broad range of applications and to be to easily accomodate ports of
existing drivers, so it should be done with thought and consideration of
the research and work that's around. I think this could be a very
rewarding work.

My 2c.
*
t

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             Tomas Pospisek - Freelance: Linuxing, Networking
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