Braille access to iPaq! (fwd)

[Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org>]

Stéphane is not subscribed to blinux-list so I forward this upon him.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 23:10:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Stéphane Doyon <s.doyon@videotron.ca>
To: ipaq@handhelds.org, wear-hard@haven.org
Cc: Nicolas Pitre <nico@CAM.ORG>
Subject: Braille access to iPaq!

I have Braille access to my iPaq! Just thought I'd announce my success,
because I find it cool!

We (Nicolas Pitre and myself) have successfully ported BRLTTY to the iPaq
and tested the setup by interfacing with a BrailleLite 18 through the
serial port.

BRLTTY is a program that allows access to the Linux text-mode console
using various brands of Braille displays.

The BrailleLite is a small electronic Braille notetaker device which can
act as a small refreshable Braille display. It also has keys so I can not
only read but also type.

So there's just the iPaq and the BrailleLite device (with a horrible
cable in between) and that's all I need to fully use the console on
the iPaq (in text-mode). A pretty powerful setup, yet very small.

At the Ottawa Linux Symposium in July, using a network card in my iPaq
and borrowing the internet connection they supplied, I was actually able
to logon to the net and go read my E-mail, using ssh, pine and lynx!

It should be possible to duplicate this setup with other Braille display
models or other PDAs.

-- 
Stéphane Doyon
<s.doyon@videotron.ca>
http://pages.infinit.net/sdoyon/