The following comments are not to be construed as the opinions of the
National Library Service, but only mine.

First of all, I really like Lynx and try to keep up with the latest
distributions and the Lynx-dev mailing list.  When it works, it gives you
the best technical information and the best flexibility for dealing with
web pages of all kinds except Javascript.  I let Internet Explorer and/or
Home Page Reader use my Lynx bookmark file as their home page, and use Lynx
about 50% of the time.

In order to run Lynx, you need a hardware synthesizer costing several
hundred dollars, whether it's a Braille 'n Speak acting as a Vt100 logged
into a server, or a DOS machine or Windows DOS box running with a DOS
screen reader which may or may not be free (I remember that you wrote your
own).

I would suggest you look at two newer options:  Connect out loud, which is
a stripped-down $250 program from Henter-Joyce which has mostly internet
functionality, and Home Page Reader version 3 $150 or less, from IBM.  Both
of these use IE 5.  HPR's keyboard interface is unconventional, but not
nearly as unconventional as it was in version 2.5 and earlier; much of it
works the same as it would using IE5 with JFW or Window-Eyes.  HPR has ten
different modes, and most of them synchronize the visual presentation with
the speech, making communication with students and staff more
straightforward.  It's a shame to have to use a sledgehammer (a processor
running a GUI) to process text, but it works pretty efficiently, and is
available and works with much of the Javascript out there.

At 04:41 PM 2/12/01 -0600, you wrote:
>        When people who are blind use a web browser, it doesn't
>matter one iota whether there are graphics or not.  The access
>technology does its best to deliver some kind of text interface
>to the person using it.
>
>        I wear two hats on our campus.  I am a UNIX system
>administrator who runs our domain name servers plus looks after
>our dhcp servers and many other UNIX-related activities.  I am
>also a member of our Campus Committee for Accessibility and I
>attend the meetings where we divide up the funds needed to provide
>accessible student work stations, etc.
>
>        It really makes me mad to have to spend the kind of money
>we must spend on Windows-related systems.  In addition, Netscape
>is the browser that is truly supported on campus while IE is
>basically tolerated because it is the proverbial 900-pound
>gorilla that can sleep anywhere it wants to.
>
>        We must buy JAWS which doubles the cost of the work
>station it is on.  This is all tax-payer and tuition money that
>we are talking about and every time we have to build one of these
>high-priced stations, that is probably one less station that we
>could put somewhere else.
>
>        From what I hear, the IBM home-page Reader sounds like a
>real deal by comparison although I have never seen it in action.
>
>        Of course, I would love to have a UNIX application that
>was based on open-source software like lynx that would not choke
>on most web sites.  There is nothing wrong if a site wants to
>sell content, but we don't have anything at all if the core
>functionality requires a marriage of a specific browser and a
>very expensive screen reader in order to kind of work on a few
>more web sites.
>
>        People who are blind do not use a graphical browser so
>much as they use a browser that was originally designed to work
>in a graphical environment in such a way as to make it behave
>like a text application.
>
>        If we give up on even trying to make web sites work with
>lynx or similarly-designed products, we are throwing out the last
>vestige of common sense and entering a world which is more like a
>measures/countermeasures game rather than a possibly solvable
>problem.
>
>        While this is a bit off the topic of what kind of browser
>is best, the real answer, here, is one that works.  There is
>nothing sacred about lynx except that it is open-source and does
>not require any expensive support software to work.  This is the
>model to strive for.
>
>Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
>OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group
>
Braille is the solution to the digital divide.
Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
National Library Service f/t Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress    (202) 707-0535  <[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.loc.gov/nls>
HOME:  <[log in to unmask]>       <http://lras.home.sprynet.com>