Interesting bit of trivia: I knew a guy back in the late 80's and 90's who was the IT guy for a relatively large company. He was totally blind and used a device called a Spequalizer to access his users' computers. This was a hardware device that plugged into a parallel port and could access most things about computers, way more than the early versions of JAWS, ASAP, Vocalize, etc. It would have been nice if this technology would have been further developed. Someone who could develop this kind of access tool could and would easily corner the screen access market. Not to be too negative, but I've always felt that the screen reader developers in general have always been too focused on forcing their software to work with specific programs and not focused enough on developing algorithms that would make more software universally accessable.
I challenge anyone to randomly download shareware, freeware, etc. that does something that you are interested in doing. I'll be willing to bet that 95 out of 100 programs will not work with your screen reader of choice or, best case, partially work. Darrin -----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of tim Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 11:05 AM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Accessing the information on the screen before thestart up screen? Anything done in BIOS would have to be sent to a third party machine for either brail or speech output. The reason for that is no device drives are present in cmos only video, keyboard and mouse. Now there use to be a few working on speech and print output. But they got told by orgs they asked money from that blind computer tech's would never be. You have to have sight to work on computers to see what your doing. So they quit and locked up all materials for said project. The most interesting part is I know more blind in the box tech's then sighted, and those orgs? Well they don't do much except keep the prices of equipment for the blind as high as possible. There is a asuse board and a gigabit board that is suppose to have boot speech, but it just tells you the post boot and no BIOS. At 07:56 AM 9/7/2012, you wrote: >Although I would have no idea how, it seems with today's technology >there would be some type self powered device that could be plugged >into a computer to allow us blind folks to read screens prior to a >Window's boot, especially in the BIOS > >Al > >-----Original Message----- >From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com >[mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of >inthaneelf >Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 10:01 PM >To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com >Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Accessing the information on the screen >before the start up screen? > >it was/is sort of possible but the items that enabled me to do this >several >windows versions back is quickly disappearing, and although I think >its >possible to put together something that could handle this, it has not >been >done as of yet! > >sorry, >inthane > >-----Original Message----- >From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com >[mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Norman >King >Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 2:43 AM >To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com >Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Accessing the information on the screen >before >thestart up screen? > >Hi. >Not possible as far as I know. > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com >[mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Debbie >Worstman >Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:30 PM >To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com >Subject: [JAWS-Users] Accessing the information on the screen before >the >start up screen? > >Hi, Someone asked me a question, and I thought someone here would have >an >answer. They would like to know how to access the information on the >screen >before the start up sounds or JAWS gives the start up prompt. > >Does anyone know if this is possible? they are using Windows7 and I >think >JAWS 13 Thank you in advance > >For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: >http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > >For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: >http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > >For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: >http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > >For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: >http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5254 - Release Date: 09/07/12 For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
