I must chime in here about UNIX.  I am extremely lucky in that
my job lets me use UNIX exclusively so I run Linux both at work and at
home.

	UNIX was not designed for the blind at all, but it is so well
engineered that we were able to capitalize upon its strengths, mainly
the concept of a standard output and standard input.  When you've got
that, you can stick just about anything in the input or output path
and the computer doesn't even care.

	I use an old DOS P.C. with Kermit in terminal mode.  Any
screen reader and speech synthesizer that worked for DOS can be used
in this manner.  You just connect a null-modem serial cable between
the UNIX box and your DOS machine and you now have a shell account.
In my office at work, the Linux work station is what does all the
heavy lifting and the DOS machine just runs Kermit and tells me what
data are coming out the serial port.

	It is a good and robust setup and there are no expenses
involved except for the hardware.

	I almost hate to publicly admit this, but I use Echo speech
synthesizers both at home and at work.  I think the older Echo
synthesizers are best except for the fact that they can't speak as
fast as I could listen.  The newer echos certainly speak faster, but
they seem to have a number of issues that distort the speech making
them harder to understand in their fastest modes.

	Since UNIX does work well for us by virtue of its basic
design, one doesn't have to worry as much as to whether this or that
program is accessible.  If a given program doesn't absolutely require
X windows to work, it is most likely going to be accessible.  It might
be a full-screen style application and be a real pain to use, but if
you can use it, it is accessible even if you might not like it much.

	Is the UNIX world perfect for us?  Of course not, but it in
general has far more plusses than minuses and I feel like I am more in
control of what happens when trying to get things done than I might be
in other operating systems.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group
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