Scott, now that you mention it, it shouldn't be impossible to port
yasr (Yet Another Screen Reader) to the mac. It runs in user space,
already works on bsd, linux, and others. With that, making it run on
the mac shouldn't be too terribly difficult, though it only supports
hardware synths, so a usb/serial adapter would be necessary. Perhaps
it could be used to drive a braille display as well, though as far as
I know, it's not been used for that in the past. No reason it
couldn't be modified though.
Something to consider.
On Mar 21, 2006, at 6:34 PM, Scott Howell wrote:
Best of my knowledge is that Speakup is still at http://linux-
speakup.org and the documentation is current accept perhaps
referring to the latest distros that have Speakup enabled installs.
There are modified Redhat packages still around.
Now to tie this back to the Mac, what would be very cool is if
there was a means to build Speakup as a set of modules that could
be loaded at boot on the Mac. I don't think it would be impossible
given that Darwin is the underlying os. Now whether it be Speakup
or VO, I think its possible to have a speaking box from boot to
shutdown if someone wanted this and I'm surprised no one has
brought this up as a topic. Sure would help with the Terminal
issue. Of course we'd have to have software speech or get the
hardware synth working, but well its just a thought and something
to add to the mix.
I love mixing it up.grin
Scott
On Mar 20, 2006, at 8:44 PM, Kafka's Daytime wrote:
Perhaps the salient point of the Newsforge article (and I try,
successfully I hope, to tie this back into a reasonably on-topic
point at the end of this post) is that it's very difficult to find
documentation and get help for FOSS in general. Case in point,
original speakup links seem to be dead. There are tutorials
scattered around but most seem out of date or, at the very least,
confusing. All Will Thoms wanted was a list of resources for Linux
access. We seem to agree that those resources are around...but
where are they? It's hard to imagine an average user (and not a
power-user like Cheryl or Travis) understanding the blinux faq:
http://leb.net/blinux/blinux-faq.html and moving easily from there
to unassisted installation. A quick Google search doesn't produce
any obvious answers that I can see (and the same goes for
information on installing Windows without sighted assistance).
Where's the independence? When posting the article link
originally, I thought it might be valuable to draw a contrast
between the realities of blind access for FOSS vs. Mac OS X. The
Mac OS X integrated, single-bellybutton, turnkey approach (without
significant additional costs e.g. expensive screen readers on
Windows or expensive hardware synthesizers on Linux) seems to be
quickly proving itself more practical, broad-accessbility and
independence-promoting vs. the current FOSS state-of-affairs with
scattered, often badly-documented resources maintained with
varying degrees of frequency/efficiency or the high cost of access
on Windows. I'm not suggesting that everybody should use a
Mac...but I am suggesting that folks developing for the other
platforms (as well as educators and legislators) would do well to
take a closer look at what Apple has done. Reasonable cost and
independence-for-the-average-user should be the central themes of
any arguments promoting the Mac as a platform for use by the blind
(and arguments for improving the state-of-affairs on the other
popular computing platforms).
This article on 'Open Source for the Visually Impaired' originally
posted in 2000 - makes some relevant arguments:
http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id=10059
There seems to be nothing at the link for the "Ocularis" Linux
distribution mentioned in the above article.
http://ocularis.sourceforge.net/
Joe
On Mar 20, 2006, at 3:09 PM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
Hmm, interesting. Both linux and Macosx can be installed without
sighted assistance. I'm assuming his issue with linux has to do
with Italian, though I'm not quite sure why that would hinder
whatever braille system he's using from being detected. I even
heard on another list that if a certain file is put together--
don't remember the details--one can also install Windows
independently.
--
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also".
