This compelling piece leaves out one critical idea:  employment.  Few
employers use Linux and the vast majority use Windows.  If one seeks a
marketable skill that can be leveraged to obtain employment opportunities,
Windows is the answer not Linux.

kelly

URL: http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh/whylinux.txt

                    Linux Makes Sense For Blind Users

                      Charles E. Hallenbeck, Ph.D.
                      Contact: [log in to unmask]

As Linux matures and finds a home in the desktop PC, blind users are
discovering that it is easy to gain access to this system with speech or
braille displays. This article summarizes how such access is achieved.

Background. The first personal computer to be used widely by the blind was
the Apple II and II-E dating from the late 1970's. With an inexpensive
speech synthesizer plugged into one of its slots, a number of useful
programs were written with their output directed to that slot. Programs
included word processors, simple data base engines, text to braille
translators, and modem/comm programs. What else could a blind person ask
for? The modem program especially opened the way to local BBS's and from
there to university and commercial time-sharing systems and to the rest of
the world of computing. The downside was that each application carried its
own unique access solutions, and blind users ended up using - forgive the
expression - "separate but equal" applications, and of course separate was
not equal then either. Blind users and sighted users did not use the same
applications and software development rapidly stagnated for blind users.

Then came DOS and the IBM compatible PC. (I am omitting the CP/M story).
On a DOS machine the solution for the blind to achieve speech access was
much more satisfactory. A special screen access program could be run at
bootup as a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) designed to steal a copy of
each keystroke and each character sent to screen memory, and direct those
copies to a speech synthesizer. The text on the screen at any given moment
was stored in memory as ASCII character codes and could conveniently be
rereferenced or reviewed by the screen access software.  Once such a TSR
program was run, all subsequent applications would automatically become
accessible to blind users, who would hear each key say its name as it was
pressed and hear all information sent to the screen. The application need
not be modified in any way. Blind users used the same applications as
everyone else. Liberation! Long live WordStar, Kermit, and Lotus 123!

Then came Windows. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) presented blind
users, or rather designers of screen access software for the blind, with a
very serious challenge. There were no characters sent to screen memory. In
fact screen memory contained no ASCII character codes at all; it contained
only pixels whose patterns sometimes looked like letters and numbers, but
sometimes looked like paperclips, smiley faces, wastebaskets, hourglasses,
or whatever. The preferred mode of input was by mouse droppings, and
eye-hand coordination was the supreme skill. Windows designers boasted
that there were "no complicated commands" to learn, such as "DIR," "COPY,"
or "DEL" I suppose. Visual intuition and the "point and click" reflex
response sufficed. At the present time GUI screen access software for
Windows exists, but it is expensive, functions imperfectly, and is rarely
as current as the most recent Windows releases. Users rely on keystroke
equivalents of mouse commands, and so those "complicated commands" have
crept back in, at least for blind users.

Linux at last. With the advent of Linux for the desktop PC, several access
solutions for blind users have been proposed. The simplest is so obvious
it hardly needs mentioning. Connect the Linux machine by a serial null
modem cable to a second PC which is already accessible, and dial into the
Linux box from there. The second machine could be an Apple with a "talking
COMM" program, or a DOS box with a standard modem program such as Procomm,
Kermit, or Telix. I used that method happily for a couple of years until
something better came along. It is very much like having a shell account
on your own machine, and it is not a bad solution at all.

Emacs and Emacspeak. Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation
will long be remembered for the GPL concept, for the GNU C/C++ compiler
GCC, and for the gonzo editor Emacs. Emacs is more than an editor; its
enthusiasts regard it as an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and
boast that one can perform any computing task one desires without ever
leaving Emacs. While there is a steep and daunting learning curve, the
payoff at the top is said to be substantial for mastering its conventions.
And as far as blind users are concerned, such an integrated environment is
perfect as a means of gaining access. T.V. Raman has developed a set of
Lisp macros to render Emacs functions accessible in speech, and the
package (called Emacspeak) is in widespread use. Its author vigorously
pursues its development, and an active email discussion lists exists to
support users. Emacspeak can even be used without a hardware voice
synthesizer, since it supports the IBM ViaVoice software synthesizer.
The downside of this solution is that one must bring the system up, log
into a user account, and run Emacs with the Emacspeak macros before having
access to the screen. In addition, if for any reason you cannot do it in
Emacs, it cannot be done.

Speakup. Have you noticed that I saved the best for last? Kirk Reiser at
the University of Western Ontario has developed an access solution called
"Speakup" which takes a very different path. Speakup is a set of kernel
patches applied to the source code for the Linux kernel. With the Speakup
patches applied and the kernel recompiled and reinstalled, the same
powerful solution that made DOS so "blind friendly" now exists for Linux.
In particular, all screen output is spoken right from the start -
including those sometimes all important bootup messages. Each key says its
name when pressed, and every application speaks its output as well as
placing it on the screen. With Speakup, the numeric keypad is dedicated to
review functions; i.e., moving an imaginary cursor around the current
screen to review its contents a line at a time, a word at a time, or
character by character. Recompiling and installing a kernel patched with
Speakup is not as difficult a task as it sounds, and the payoff is a
totally accessible desktop PC running a world class operating system.

Many developers of access technology are themselves blind, including both
Raman and Reiser. There is a clear sense of self-help at work here. In
addition to the usual support structures for all Linux users, blind
persons using Linux have available several specialized support lists
dealing with access issues. Blind plus Linux equals BLINUX, a term often
appearing in the names of email lists on this subject. Two examples are
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] You should also
visit http://www.linux-speakup.org for the best information and the latest
developments.

Unsolved problems. A handful of minor problems remains, and a few rather
major ones. The smaller problems have to do with those as yet unfinished
features of Speakup, which time and diligence will surely fix. Speakup has
a principal author, but it is offered as an Open Source project and has an
impressive number of very talented lieutenants providing Kirk Reiser with
very capable assistance.

One major problem is that Speakup requires a hardware speech synthesizer
at the present time. A software synthesizer would either increase the
kernel size unreasonably or would be designed as a kernel module. In the
latter case, it would not be able to excute until after Linux has
completed loading and configuring itself, and so much important early
information would be lost to the blind user. Fortunately hardware
synthesizers are not terribly expensive.

Another major problem is that neither Emacspeak nor Speakup provide access
to the Linux GUI, the X windowing system. Unlike Windows, where the GUI is
the only interface offered, Linux makes its GUI a user choice, and so in
its character mode the full power of Linux is available for the blind to
enjoy. However, when running X, Linux is no longer an accessible
environment for the blind. There are a few X applications that blind users
might like to use, including Netscape and WordPerfect, although there are
text based alternatives that are very useful tools. I myself rely on Lynx
and Pine in the Linux character environment. Quite recently a text based
interface for Realplayer by Matt Campbell, called "trplayer," has made
audio streams and realaudio files accessible without resort to a GUI
context.

Linux is not Unix of course, but the differences are legal and economic
rather than real. As such its conventions and its style date from the
early 1970's and anticipate DOS by a decade and Windows by two. It is
based on open standards and flourishes under Open Source. It makes a great
choice for any serious PC user, and especially for those who must rely on
speech access to the digital world.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html