hi Stefan und Samuel,
the problem with the braille support in bios is that the modern PCs don't have a seriel-port maybe an on-board pin-connector
that's why more an more braille-display manufactories switch to usb-connection so, we need usb-serial-converter support in bios another problem is that the braille-display-protocoll is not a standard each manufactory use their own protocoll in some cases the protocoll is dependent on the model
and they also use different usb-serial-converters
the braille-driver is only one part a second part is a very small and simple screenrading mechainism to genrate a proper output
I think first it would be helpful to have bios access from the console with a small tool to adjust bios settings like boot from CD or enable/disable hardware
maybe there is already a way to do this
best regards
marco
On Mon, 3 Jul 2006, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
- Samuel Thibault samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org [060703 00:06]:
BIOSes is an area where accessibility is approximately non-existent. Asking vendors to support hardware speech syntheses and braille devices is quite dreamwork. I tried to convince accessibility people to release basic drivers with BSD licenses so that vendors might integrate them, but they just refused that, arguing that vendors will not make any effort to integrate them, and there will always be bugs
Maybe this code could be encapsulated, similar to how VGA bios or network boot is handled. On the other hand, this would cut off quite some of the bringup from "visibility"
LinuxBios, however, can be a great opportunity to have an accessible BIOS.
So what can be done? If I understood well, LinuxBios is a linux kernel -based bios. Does that mean that it has the notion of process, or does it run only in kernel mode? (which is sufficient for taking advantage of linux drivers).
LinuxBIOS initializes the machine just far enough so that it can run a Linux kernel from flash memory, hence the name. This in-flash Linux can run normal userspace programs as well as load another kernel from a hard disk or any other supported medium.
usually we can say: the main information exchange with LinuxBIOS (before the kernel is started) is not via VGA but via serial, which i believe is in theory usable with a braille terminal connected to another machine. (Is this correct?)
The interaction part is all happening while Linux is loaded (ie. from flash) so we could use a local braille terminal at this point by using all the Linux utilities.
One question is: how big is the Linux code to support one/some/many/all braille terminals and can we fit this in a 512kB/1MB flash part. The answer mostly depends on your needs.
Regards Stefan
-- coresystems GmbH o Brahmsstr. 16 o D-79104 Freiburg i. Br. Tel.: +49 761 7668825 o Fax: +49 761 7664613 Email: info@coresystems.de o http://www.coresystems.de/
------------------------------------------------------------ Marco Skambraks, Product Manager SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg T: +49 (0) 911 74053-0 Fax: +49 (0) 911 74053-483 marco.skambraks@suse.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ** life is hard and then you die **