This is so you won't have to go dig in the bp archives
Hello to all

I am an IT Support Specialist who owns a Braille note pk. I work with
many different operating systems, and there for feel vary limited on
what the pk offers in functionality, especially because of what is the
potential I see for this thing.

Well, last night I got fed up and said no more! There for I spent five
hours to learn what this thing was about. 
Now, allot of people will just take any companies word when they say
"nope, you can't do that with our product", and just stop in their
tracks. Well, I often prove the impossible to be possible and I will
explain my findings.

Lets take a disclaimer brake k????
Please note:
My comments and/or opinions in this email in any way shape or form are
not in anyway ment to damage humanware, or discredit humanware, only to
compliment humanware and really let them know that they're developers
out here that see the potential for their products and know that they
could do so much more.
---end disclaimer---

Now the findings....
So I use a Braille note pk with the keysoft 6 build 26 and windows ce
4.20. I am a developer, I have done commercial work from time to time
but mainly a hobbiest now. I write in the major low level and mid level
languages, and well, feel that I have what it takes for programming for
these things.
Let me explain a little to you about what the internals of the pk and/or
the bn line is. Please note:This information I give is public
information, I, in anyway, am not giving out confidential information
just information that was found out by just "putting two and two
together".

Keysoft is a shell to windows ce, as explorer is a shell to windows. We
currently have a 400mhz processor in our pk's and 32? Or 64? Of ram and
32? Or 64? Of flash disk. We run a standard windows ce os, so there is
no reason why we can't program for the platform with regular tools and
I'll explain why.
In the "utilities menu" off the main menu, there in an option called
"application program" witch lets you run (in theory, says humanware but
really isn't implemented right now) it presents you with the standard
"choose file to" and lets you browse file directories to find a program
to run. Well.....
The program I downloaded and test for about five hours was called:
Pocket putty
http://pocketputty.duxy.net

Witch is a windows ce version of the popular putty for windows, witch is
used to interface with unix/linux boxes from windows. Now...... When you
open a program you wish to run, you get presented with a text input
prompt that says "command line?" witch is asking what switches you would
like to run with this program.
Since I have none, I just hit enter right??? wrong. Cause with the
pocket putty on my Ipaq, the first screen is a "connection screen" and
you type the ip or host name you want to connect to. And so, I believe
if that horrid "command line " prompt didn't appear, I would be able to
interact with the program directly. 
Unfortunately, the "pdi" that human ware use to be was miss leading when
they told some one on here that there was no way to code for the
platform cause you had to talk to the display and speech chip and I'll
tell you why.
Now, if I left the command line prompt blank, my pk would just sit there
as if nothing happened. But anything I enter, be it a word, or ip the
command line prompt takes the first char I enter and takes it as a
switch, well.... Kind of , but putty takes it as the host I am trying to
enter and tries to connect to "1" instead of the "192.x.x.x" that I
typed in. now, if the information was true witch some one said on here
that the program would essentially run silent was true, I wouldn't
received a error directly from putty wanting me to choose a choice on
how to proceed.
Now, in order to explain this, I hit every letter in the alphabet, and
when I typed a "n" the pk said "no" and when I hit "I" the pk said
"ignore" and when I hit "y" the pk said "yes". Now this tells me that
there are three buttons in a dialogue I have choices to choose. And I
verified this with my ipaq.

Granted, this is as far as I got, and let me conclude by saying what we
learned.
1. keysoft is only a shell such as explorer is and has potential to be
improved.
2. since we run a normal ce os, we should be able to just code in c or
c++or what ever and create programs.
3. essentially an sdk is not needed from my research, maybe some
instructions or documentation on how to interface with keysoft.
4. I will write a program for windows ce tonight in c and see how it
works hout in different environments.
5. the program directly sends information to the display and the speech
chip I come to this conclusion  this cause it sent me an error message
to my display that the pk fully interacted with.


Gabe Vega
Technical Support Specialist
Information Services Unit
Arizona Industries for the Blind
CellPhone:(602) 488-9862


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