Actually the first screen readers were as you describe. They were hardware cards that got information from the video adapter and tried to present the information that it thought we needed. This was good as long as programs were simple and text based and wrote threw the video card in a way that the card could understand. How-ever operating systems became more and more complex and the user interfaces of programs followed suit. Giving the user advantages and capabilities not even dreamed of at the start. It was seen very quickly that there was just no way to keep these hardware screen readers up to date and no way that the hardware solution was going to be able to handle the configurations needed. This was when the software screen reader came in to play. Software still needed a hardware text to speech device at this point but the software could be updated and adapted to the text based user interfaces. Well computers were not going to stay text based forever so a means of getting information that was meaningful and useful from the gui was needed. Well the gui works on a system of objects interacting with one another so it made since to build the software to interact with the gui in the way that it understands. Also once again giving the software an idea of what is important and what would just be to verbose. Now we were paying still lots of money for text to speech but soon thereafter the text to speech was converted in to software making it much more affordable. It is cheaper to produce software and keep it up to date and software stands a much better chance of getting information from the software that is meaningful then hardware will ever have. So yes I am afraid using software to give us the information is the best course. Remember putting the information on screen the user sees it and determines at a glance what he or she needs to know. A box that presented information to the blind with speech would have to make this choice for us. A hardware device would not have the advantage of set files scripts or even access to an off screen model to tell it where things were on screen. Also as the UI changes it would be much harder to update a hardware device. Would not be available on a lease to own system and how much would you charge for said device how could you make sure it worked on a netbook etc. this as I said is not including the limitation a hard ware device would face getting information from the operating system. You might say well a hardware device would give you access from boot up to shutdown. Maybe even before at the bios level. Not so. fact is every bios is doing its own thing many of them are gui based now and even if it did tell you information how would you control how much it provided. No when you consider all these things software and getting information threw software is really the best approach. The slim and the speakerlizer were cool but there day is long past.
Jim Grimsby Junior. Please feel free to contact me at anytime using one of the below methods. Skype: Jim.Grimsby 909-498-4711. E-mail: [email protected] Windows live messenger: [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Curtis Delzer [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:11 AM To: Jim Grimsby JR.; 'Andy Baracco' Cc: [email protected] Subject: RE: window eyes lockups Hi Jim, you propose the answer we all want, why is it with sight, the problem can be solved, but with our trusty screen reader, which becomes untrustworthy, can't these lockups be handled? :) Now if the screen reader weren't so dependent on other resources to work properly from the getgo, then we wouldn't be in trouble. :) <grin> man, the problem is all the interaction the screen reader depends on from within the computer itself, rather than it's own resources like a stand alone monitor which is just that, a monitor. :) If such a screen reader were in a box of it's own which should have been the design from the beginning, then . . . we'd be a lot more independent than we are now. Screen readers should be like a monitor, completely independent of the computer so it can "read," and not lock up with all else that locks up. We'd then have access to about all visually endowed persons have access too, but unfortunately the path was chosen a long time ago to use computer resources to run our screen readers so . . . we stuck with it. It is way difficult to think out of the computer box I guess, so we on this path and we're going to stick with it or bust, so it busts, often, or at least when it does, we are again thrown up against the "not being able to see," problem again. Curtis Delzer. HS. At Saturday 9/12/2009 12:07 AM, Jim Grimsby JR. wrote: >I have seen this as well been generally when I have researched the problem. >It is an unresponsive version of Internet Explorer. as I have stated >previously. When a program stops responding the loaded screen reader has >difficulty getting information from the operating system, and therefore >speech is lost. closing the unresponsive version of Internet Explorer >generally solves the problem, And speech returns. Now here is the >question. I have always asked myself why when your computer crashes or you >have some sort of problem with it to you automatically assume that it is a >problem with your screen reader? Sometimes it is but the majority of the >time it is the interaction between the screen reader and the operating >system something the screen reader has no control over. > >Jim Grimsby Junior. >Please feel free to contact me at anytime using one of the below methods. >Skype: Jim.Grimsby 909-498-4711. >E-mail: [email protected] >Windows live messenger: [email protected] > >-----Original Message----- >From: Andy Baracco [mailto:[email protected]] >Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 6:30 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: windoweyes lockups > >This has happened to me as well. >Andy >At 06:22 AM 9/11/2009, you wrote: > >Hey guys, > >I am wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I don't mind telling > >you it is extremely annoying, and frustrating as i can not trouble shoot >it. > >I'll be in internet explorer. I will all of a sudden alt tab to another > >window. I notice that is when this problem occurs. The computer will just > >lockup. > >The killer is i can not get an error or anything from windoweyes, it locks > >up. > >I try restarting windoweyes and it makes the high to low musical default > >sound from windows. So there is obviously some sort of error. > >Has anyone ever seen this before. > >I'll put my ear down to the computer and hear the harddrive spinning for > >some odd reason. > >Any dieas guys? I ahte the fact that i have to hard reset the computer at >a > >minimum of 2 to 3 times per day. Thoughts? > > > >Thanks,Jed > > > >If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original > >sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and > >your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending > >your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. > > > >All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, > >and can be searched through and sorted using the search > >form at the bottom of the page. > > > >If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to > >[email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body > >of the message. > > >If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original >sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and >your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending >your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. > >All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and can >be searched through and sorted using the search >form at the bottom of the page. > >If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to >[email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body >of the message. > >If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original >sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and >your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending >your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. > >All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, >and can be searched through and sorted using the search >form at the bottom of the page. > >If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to >[email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body >of the message. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and can be searched through and sorted using the search form at the bottom of the page. If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body of the message. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and can be searched through and sorted using the search form at the bottom of the page. If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body of the message.
