braille and X

braille and X

[Andor Demarteau]

heya,
did anyone already try (I think it was from Beam tld) braille-support under
X, with what type of braille-hardware and what were the successes/failures?
thanx for any insites

slainte mhaith (good health)
-----------
Andor Demarteau           E-mail: ademarte@students.cs.uu.nl
student computer science  www: http://www.students.cs.uu.nl/~ademarte/
Utrecht University        note: homepage is outdated, don't remind me!
-----------
Believe in yourself, know what you want, and make it happen!

Re: braille and X

[Jos Lemmens]

Hi Andor,

I've installed XVI on my Slackware 7.1 system. To use it, I had to
start a modified X-server. There are two servers included, an SVGA
and a S3 server. After starting the X-server, you have to start sbserver.
That is an speech/braille server. Then start xvisb and you have speech
and braille from your X-server.
I use the IBM ViaVoice speech synth and a Alva 340. (Ectualy it is designed
for the Alva 440/Delphi, but the 340 also works. The 440 has more
touch-keys, so some functions I cannot use from the Alva.)

It looks nice, but it isn't very stable.

    Best regards,

       Jos.
>
> heya,
> did anyone already try (I think it was from Beam tld) braille-support under
> X, with what type of braille-hardware and what were the successes/failures?
> thanx for any insites
>
> slainte mhaith (good health)
> -----------
> Andor Demarteau           E-mail: ademarte@students.cs.uu.nl
> student computer science  www: http://www.students.cs.uu.nl/~ademarte/
> Utrecht University        note: homepage is outdated, don't remind me!
> -----------
> Believe in yourself, know what you want, and make it happen!
>
>
>

   -------------------------------
   Jos Lemmens
   Madoerastraat 78
   3131 ZL  Vlaardingen
   The Netherlands
   Tel.: + 31-10-248 0 266
   E-mail: jos@jlemmens.nl
   Homepage: www.jlemmens.nl

Re: braille and X

[Mario Lang]

Andor Demarteau <ademarte@students.cs.uu.nl> writes:

> did anyone already try (I think it was from Beam tld) braille-support under
> X,

Yes.

> with what type of braille-hardware

I wrote a quick and dirty module for my PowerBraille 80.
It worked like a quick and DIRTY hack can work.
Screen content was often scrambled, But I am unsure
if this comes from sbserver or from the
way I implemented the driver. Still have
to debug this.


> and what were the successes/failures?

Hmm, I recognized that there is no line mode.
IMHO as long as there is no line-mode implemented,
braille display support makes not much sense
because you only get what you get when you use the speech synth,.
No additional information, and no more than one
object horizontally, regardless if one more would
fit on the display.

I had some difficulties with the driver interface
because nearly the whole sbserver is a binary.
But that could be the effect of my lazieness.

-- 
CYa,
   Mario <mlang@delysid.org>
Homepage(s): http://delysid.org | http://piss.at/

When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't.

sbl installation

[Joel Zimba]

Hi,

I just boughtthe suse-linux distribution from the huge bookstore down the
street.

I've been using linux for years, but never on this computer.  I was hoping I
could boot up with the alva attached andit would just work, which is what
the documentation implied.

*sigh*  after I finally tracked the right documents,  it said only baum and
papenmeier would work out of the box.

are there any kernel options I can pass to the booting bootdisk kernel to
make the alva work right?
I think the driver is there, but it just doesn't drive the alva.

I also tried attaching my old notex486, but it probably doesn't speak the
braillex protocol...

I'd appreciate any thoughts...

thanks,

Joel

btw,  maybe I should write blinux documentation aboutthis once I get it
working?  or is there something out there already?



-----Original Message-----
From: blinux-list-admin@redhat.com
[mailto:blinux-list-admin@redhat.com]On Behalf Of Andor Demarteau
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 5:21 PM
To: blinux-list@redhat.com
Subject: braille and X


heya,
did anyone already try (I think it was from Beam tld) braille-support under
X, with what type of braille-hardware and what were the successes/failures?
thanx for any insites

slainte mhaith (good health)
-----------
Andor Demarteau           E-mail: ademarte@students.cs.uu.nl
student computer science  www: http://www.students.cs.uu.nl/~ademarte/
Utrecht University        note: homepage is outdated, don't remind me!
-----------
Believe in yourself, know what you want, and make it happen!



_______________________________________________
Blinux-list mailing list
Blinux-list@redhat.com
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list

Re: sbl installation

[Christian Schoepplein]

Hi Joe!

Which version of SuSE-Linux have you bought? 7.0 or 7.1 ??? 7.1 should
recognize Alva's during the installation allthough we wern't able to test
it:-(. 7.0 can't recognize them :-(.

Best regards,
Schoepp

On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Joel Zimba wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just boughtthe suse-linux distribution from the huge bookstore down the
> street.
>
> I've been using linux for years, but never on this computer.  I was hoping I
> could boot up with the alva attached andit would just work, which is what
> the documentation implied.
>
> *sigh*  after I finally tracked the right documents,  it said only baum and
> papenmeier would work out of the box.
>
> are there any kernel options I can pass to the booting bootdisk kernel to
> make the alva work right?
> I think the driver is there, but it just doesn't drive the alva.
>
> I also tried attaching my old notex486, but it probably doesn't speak the
> braillex protocol...
>
> I'd appreciate any thoughts...
>
> thanks,
>
> Joel
>
> btw,  maybe I should write blinux documentation aboutthis once I get it
> working?  or is there something out there already?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blinux-list-admin@redhat.com
> [mailto:blinux-list-admin@redhat.com]On Behalf Of Andor Demarteau
> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 5:21 PM
> To: blinux-list@redhat.com
> Subject: braille and X
>
>
> heya,
> did anyone already try (I think it was from Beam tld) braille-support under
> X, with what type of braille-hardware and what were the successes/failures?
> thanx for any insites
>
> slainte mhaith (good health)
> -----------
> Andor Demarteau           E-mail: ademarte@students.cs.uu.nl
> student computer science  www: http://www.students.cs.uu.nl/~ademarte/
> Utrecht University        note: homepage is outdated, don't remind me!
> -----------
> Believe in yourself, know what you want, and make it happen!
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>

-- 
Christian Schoepplein <mail@schoeppi.net>
ICQ# 97275311

BEAM XVI Linux Software, X-Windows access for the visually impaired and blind

[Terry Barnaby]

BEAM has developed a software package to assist visually impaired and
blind
people in the use of Unix X-Windows systems. It is called the XVI system
and
has been in use for a number of years.
The current system is implemented as a hardware/software solution in the
form
of an X-Windows network terminal.

We have performed an initial port to the Linux operating system.
However,
although usable, some aspects of the system need further work.
This includes drivers for different devices and interfaces to different
GUI toolkits such as KDE, GNOME and TK.

We have so far developed this product on our own. We are now looking for

funding to enable us to open this product into the public domain under a
GPL
type licence. This would enable the XVI system to be free to users and
allow
the community of Linux software developers to improve the system.
This, we believe, would be the best solution for the visually impaired
and
blind Linux user and Linux system distributors.

What we would need is an initial sum of money to develop the system a
little
further and to open it under a GPL like licence. Once this is done we
would
like to release the source code to the developer community in CVS form
and
manage its development.

We have produced a web site giving a technical description of the
product
and its current development activity. There is a demo version of the
software
available on our web site.

We would welcome anyone to have a look and provide feedback on this.

Please contact xvil@beam.demon.co.uk.

Mail:  mailto:xvil@beam.demon.co.uk
WebSite: http://www.beam.ltd.uk/xvil/

--
  Dr Terry Barnaby                     BEAM Ltd
  Phone: +44 1454 324512               Northavon Business Center, Dean Rd
  Fax:   +44 1454 313172               Yate, Bristol, BS37 5NH, UK
  Email: terry@beam.demon.co.uk        Web: www.beam.demon.co.uk
  BEAM for: Visually Impaired X-Terminals, Parallel Processing, Software Dev
                         "Tandems are twice the fun !"