Alan,

MathML implementation as far as browsers and accessibility are concerned,
is still in its infancy, and my guess is that it will be quite a while
(years?) before
this will be a viable solution to the math access problem.

In the mean time, the most accessible way I have encountered for dealing
with math on the web is the format used by the Drexel University Math Forum
site:

http://www.mathforum.com/

It is basically done with normal ASCII text, and while this can be tedious
to unscramble at times, it is better than nothing.  There is a page on that
site that
describes the typographical conventions and gives examples of preferred
notation.

To make your graphics-based equations accessible I would probably consider
either something like the WGBH "D" descriptive link to an alternate,
text-only
page, or maybe a longdesc tag.  I would also provide a link to a page
describing the typographical conventions, and even possibly, in the case of
complex
or unusual equations, some descriptive information right on the target page
itself.

Just in case you want to see what is going on with MathML, you can try the
W3C MathML pages:

http://www.w3.org/Math/implementations.html

Hope this helps,

Jim

------------

Jim Rebman

Center for Life-Long Learning and Design
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Boulder

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent.  It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the
opposite direction."

 - E. F. Schumacher