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> On Jun 28, 2023, at 1:42 PM, Linux for blind general discussion > <blinux-list@redhat.com> wrote: > > I appreciate the answers all of you have provided because I felt > rotten after posting because it's kind of off-topic for > the discussion list. I run debian Linux on 3 Raspberry Pi's plus > 3 PC's. Two of them are working relics, one of them having been > made in 1998 or so and the other in 2004, judging by the BIOS > dates on them. The third one is a HP Pavillion which I bought a > year ago last March. The debian install for the new box was via > an off-the-shelf image which is the AMD64 version of debian 11, > better known as bullseye. The installer talks if you press the > lower case s as soon as you hear the beep so the only thing I > needed sighted help with were some BIOS setups such as turning > off secureboot. > > In a nut shell, it seems to be working well with Orca but > the sound isn't right. The new HP had Windows10 on it and sound > worked fine with that so it's not the hardware. > > My fix for that is to use a hdmi-to-analog converter > because sound is fine on the hdmi interface. > > Now, back to the topic at hand, the DOS PC has been > sitting in our attic for maybe ten years. It had a 60-megabyte > hard drive which is now junk because when you turn on the power, > you hear the platter spin up like it's going to do something > useful then the head un-parks and there's this little bzz extra > noise and the controller shuts down the platter motor, waits a > few seconds and tries again with similar results. I have knocked > the drive against a few things and shook it but it still makes > bad noises so I think it is a goner. Fortunately, there wasn't > much on it and surprisingly, the floppies all still work but one > of them makes questionable noises but still reads and writes. > > Back in the day, I wrote my own DOS screen reader in > assembler and even used it at work until speakup on debian boxes > came along. The dos screen reader sends the screen output to > com2 on the PC and I can feed that in to microcom and or kermit. > > Something, however, is wrong with my serial ports on the > DOS system because while the mode command lets me set the baud > rate, number of bytes, parity and so forth, the system locks up > the instant I try to send stuff in DOS to com2. Com 1 also lets > you set it but it's even worse in that I haven't gotten one byte > through it in maybe a decade so I'm not holding my breath. > > The basic version I am using is actually called basica > and I think it should fit perfectly with those .bas files but I > can tell you that you are partly correct in that a lot of a .bas > file is ASCII text since the unix utility called strings sees > lots of words but since basic is an interpreted language, there > is a lot of binary stuff mixed in so one wouldn't get too much > that you could trust by just catting xyz.bas |strings. > > This is not gwbasic or qbasic but the basic that > Microsoft bundled with DOS until about 1983, I think. > > The programs I will eventually recover are examples for > programming a X10 CP290 interface. X10 is an early home > automation system that has been around since the late seventies. > > The gcc unix program I wrote in the mid nineties that > talks to this interface was based on listing the basic programs > but back in 1995 when I first wrote the program, the program > worked. > > Now, I realized that I should have documented the source > code better because there is a spot where one shifts a byte 4 > bits to the left and then combines thelower 4 bits with 4 more > bits from another byte. I must not have done it properly because > it quit working relatively recently due to upgrades in gcc. > > So, this isn't really worth a lot of effort on anybody > else's part but I should be able to list those basic programs > then transplant the logic over to the C program so that the CP290 > sees what it is supposed to again. > > This also makes me doubly appreciate unix because so much > stuff in unix just works whereas in DOS, it mostly worked but you > had to fiddle around a lot more to connect systems together. > > We all know that the designers of unix weren't thinking > of people who are blind at all but unix-like operating systems > are inherently easier to make accessible due to their basic > structure and the concept of standard input and output. > > I will keep poking at the museum hardware I have and > probably figure enough out to list these programs. > > It's kind of fun but it brings back some unpleasant > memories, also. > > Martin McCormick > Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list@redhat.com> writes: >> .bat files are executed by the command interpreter. There might be a way >> to >> execute a system command from BASIC, but I don't remember now. Regardless, >> your .bat file would need to invoke the BASIC interpreter again, so I >> don't >> think that calling it from within basica (although I'm wondering if you >> really mean gwbasic here) would help you. It sounds like you want the >> BASIC >> interpreter to execute some commands automatically. You might be able to >> do >> that by redirecting standard input, but I don't know for sure that that >> will work. And it sounds like you have a limited number of .bas files to >> convert, so trying to automate the task might be more trouble than it's >> worth. >> >> >> -Mike Gorse > > _______________________________________________ > Blinux-list mailing list > Blinux-list@redhat.com > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > basica has a system function to run commands outside of itself. If memory > serves, system(“command.bat”) should work with no command parameters. With > command parameters put them in the same way you would if bat file was being > run outside of basica just before the closing quote. _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@redhat.com https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
