That particular screen reader (as far as I know), only worked on os/2.
There was no windows/dos version of that particular screen reader.
The Dos screen readers that I personally used were: iartic Technologies
artic vision, business vision (artic vision's big brother), ASAP, jaws,
and a couple free ones, smoothtalker (or something similar), which
worked with the soundblaster soundcard, and provox, which was an
opensource one.
Obviously, some worked better than others, and this is by no means a
complete list of dos screen readers, but it gives you an idea of what's
tout there.
On 9/25/2024 11:54 PM, Martin Iturbide via Freedos-user wrote:
Hello
I'm sorry I'm going the other way here talking about screen readers
under DOS, instead of the "installing FreeDOS with a screen reader"
topic.
IBM used to have a technology for blind people that used to run on DOS
and OS/2. It was called the IBM Screen Reader.
What is the issue here? It required some specific synthesizer cards
and a special numeric keypad. I never saw this running on OS/2 or DOS,
I'm looking forward to eventually seeing a YouTube video about this.
Or even someone trying to run this old IBM software under FreeDOS
and/or vintage hardware.
I only have some information:
- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php?title=Screen_Reader/2
- https://knowbility.org/blog/2021/a-brief-history-of-screen-readers
- https://archive.org/download/IBMScreenReader
Regards
On Mon, Sep 23, 2024 at 2:51 PM Lawrence Perez via Freedos-user
<freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
Hello everyone,
I'm reaching out to seek advice regarding FreeDOS and its
accessibility, particularly for blind users like myself who rely
on a screen reader.
I’m using the Orca screen reader on Raspberry Pi OS, and I also
have access to a Mac with the VoiceOver screen reader. I’m
interested in experimenting with DOS and retro technology,
including playing older text-based games, but I’ve encountered
many accessibility challenges.
I have tried to use other emulators such as DOSBox and DOSEMU.
DOSBox doesn’t support sending output to the terminal and will
send all output to a GUI that my screen readers can’t interact
with. I’ve heard DOSEMU has this option, but I don’t have a Linux
computer that can support it.
After some experimentation, I managed to get the FreeDOS installer
to output to the terminal using QEMU, which is currently the only
method I’ve found that works with my screen readers. With this
method, I am able to type DOS commands and have their output
spoken by the screen reader. I'm running QEMU in no graphics mode
to avoid opening another window and to redirect all output to the
terminal.
However, I’m encountering an issue during the installation of
FreeDOS. DOS prompts me to partition the virtual drive and
requires a restart, giving me a yes or no prompt. Once I type Y
and the system restarts, the terminal displays the normal boot
sequence and doesn’t respond to any further commands. From my
research, I believe this issue is related to the virtual serial
interface that sends output to the terminal, but I’m not familiar
with how DOS handles this, as I am new to DOS.
Since I can get the installer to work, is it possible to copy all
the installer files to a virtual QEMU disk and make it bootable,
without the disadvantage that the system will be read-only? How
could I do this? Alternatively, can I use DOS as is, using only
the ISO image? Finally, what unique text-based DOS games /
software do you recommend I try when installation succeeds?
I appreciate any insights or guidance you can offer.
Sincerely,
Lawrence
Sent from my iPhone
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Martín Itúrbide
http://www.os2world.com
mar...@os2world.com
martiniturb...@gmail.com
Quito - Ecuador
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