Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 status - and screen readers
Hi! Last time I tried running my screen reader on freedos (admittedly, it was several years ago, and freedos wasn't anywhere near ver 1.0) it just plain didn't work. Then try again. If you use NANSI, make sure to use the /R option to force output via BIOS. FreeDOS uses BIOS int 10 function 0e for many things while MS DOS uses the slower but more flexible pair 2 and 9. Screen readers should support both styles. There is a free w/source screen reader for dos called provox. As it is open source, it will be easy to check which BIOS styles it supports - by reading the source and or by asking the author. Patching should be easy enough, too... Note that modern hardware often has very limited soundblaster compatibility, but maybe your screen reader uses other hardware anyway. Most modern operating systems have some sort of screen reader built-in Not really. Larger Linux distros tend to make it easy to install brltty but brltty is not part of the kernel or anything... If this could be made to work, freedos could then be listed as blindfriendly, and would likely win a few more supporters. I would recommend making a separate boot disk or boot cd with the screen reader already enabled. how does one go about including a product in the base distribution While a screen reader is useful, it is not base in the way our base is defined... Our base is: Things which do things that you were able to do with ms dos without installing additional software. Note that distros such as http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/ include more than just base but are still small. I recently made a single 2.88 MB diskette image out of the first two Rugxulo diskettes, as that is useful for making a bootable cd or dvd. Cheers, Eric - This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 status - and screen readers
Well, brltty is for braille support, not speech output, and I agree that it is generally distributed separately. However, speakup is physically part of the linux kernel (for those distros that include it) though there are other screen readers (such as yasr for text mode, and orca for gui output) I think a screen reader should still be considered. True, msdos didn't include one, and to buy one cost nearly a thousand dollars once software and hardware were combinations were purchased (there weren't any that worked with soundblasters originally) Freedos is of course free, and thereby providing a screen reader that does work out of the box would encourage many more folks to give it a try. It may be something that wasn't included with msdos, but by default, msdos didn't include mscdex either, until several iterations of 5.x was out, so I see nothing wrong with bending the guidelines for this one. For blind users, not including is exactly the same as not including a monitor, and expecting folks to be able to use their computers off the shelf. I will of course create my own distribution with screen reader support built-in if necessary, but I'd really like to avoid this if at all possible. I'll install freedos again on one of my machines, and see if I can get it working with any of my screen readers (I have managed to accumulate quite a few over the years) but as you point out, modifying the source for provox should be easy enough. Failing that, I am the owner of the defunct syntha-voice slimware dos screen reader product, and can certainly port that to freedos if something more robust than provox is necessary, but since provox is minimal, and very small, for an initial release at least, it probably would be better to use that one, especially since source for slimware isn't allowed to be made available per my agreement with the previous owners sigh With that said though, I do respect your stand-point, and if no screen reader is the final word, then I'll certainly not belabor the point here, but I'd strongly urge that if at all possible, something, whether it be provox or something else, be included just so visually impaired/blind people can use freedos out of the box so to speak, starting the screen reader after dos is up and running should be a simple enough task for anyone who wants to try it out, (I.E. no need to have it start automatically at system boot by default). - This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 status - and screen readers
Hi! Well, brltty is for braille support, not speech output The part of the problem where you have to fetch text from dos to redirect it to another device is the same for both. Work to improve cooperation of either with dos helps both. By the way, there also was a project to port brltty to dos, can you find out how far they got? Of course, things which invoke Linux specific abilities such as USB drivers or ALSA sound or multitasking cannot be ported, so you will only be able to use serial and printer port braille with dos brltty. There also was some free or low cost dos screen reader which used internal speaker, sound blaster or covox (printer port dac) for sound output... Please do not misunderstand my statement that a screen reader is not base. Base simply means part of a minimal distro that mimicks ms dos. Any non-minimal distro and in particular any blind optimized distro are welcome to include screen readers. Let me know when you have questions about freedos during your work on configuring or possibly adapting provox for freedos. Eric - This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
