Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx for a blind user

[Bill Schiavo]

Hello everyone. 

Actually, I have found that the dos port of lynx is very well behaved with
most screen readers so getting Lynx to "speak" isn't difficult.  The
problem for me is whether Netcom uses standard PPP to connect to the
internet.  If Netcom uses real PPP, you can get dosppp05.zip (a pretty
stable port of PPPD for Linux) and just follow the installation
instructions for it as well as those for the DOS port of Lynx.  The port
of Lynx available from Wayne will not "speak" automatically because it
uses direct video memory access to write to the screen.  This can be
overcome by building a version of Lynx with the latest version of
PDCurses.  The latest version of PDCurses for DOS allows you to use BIOS
calls instead of direct video memory access to update the screen and this
is especially helpful for those of us who use screen readers.  Don't
worry, you won't actually have to do this as I plan on making executable
immages of Lynx compiled with this library available to anyone who wants
them.

Have you considered other alternatives?  Currently I have set up a variety
of solutions for accessing the internet and using the DOS port of Lynx is
just one of them.  I am also running a Linux machine in conjunction with a
DOS machine.  Access to Linux is gained through the DOS machine which has
been set up as a talking terminal and this approach works extremely well.
However, it is not for everyone since Linux can be a bit complex at times.
Netcom offers shell accounts and I strongly recommend using that option
especially if your daughter doesn't have much experience with computers.
All you need to take advantage of this option is a simple
telecommunications program.  This approach is the most popular among
visually impaired people since it is the easiest to implement. You can
also use Windows and one of those graphical browsers along with a screen
reader design for windows but that's a bit challenging and requires lots
of patients even for those of us with a great deal of experience with
screen readers and computers. 

If you would like more information about this topic write to me privately.


Regards!






On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, David Woolley wrote:

> > 
> > Why do you think the 386+ port from Wayne (FDISK.COM) wouldn't work?
> 
> What I said was that it would either work straight away or be very difficult.
> 
> A screen reader is almost certainly going to be a TSR.  If I were creating
> a DOS extender, I would give serious consideration to doing screen output
> directly, rather than switching back to real or virtual 86 mode to call the 
> BIOS, and I wouldn't necessarilly give control back to real mode to allow
> a TSR to directly read the screen.  If that is the case, the screen reader
> would have to be customised for the DOS extender.  As the main use of DOS
> extenders these days is highly graphic games, I wouldn't expect there
> to much of a market for 32 bit mode screen readers, possibly having to
> be ported for each extender.
> 
> So basically, if the screen reader is capable of working with the DOS
> extender, it should be simply a question of following the installation
> instructions for the screen reader.  If it is not, the problems will likely
> be so fundamental as to require a completely different approach.
> 
> Either way, I don't think that it is likely that we can contribute anything
> beyond re-iterating the installation instructions for the two products; the
> DOS port is so recent, that it is very likely that this will be the first
> attempt to use it with a screen reader.
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