I have attached to my imac a dos computer. I use it to perform tasks in
terminal and on the internet. Why you ask do that?
It is my experience that not since the high level times of dos screen
access have blind people had as much fine grained control and power to read
screens in the way they perfer. This is just impossible in a gui. Just
one small measure, what in dos takes one keystroke in the mac gui might
take 3 or more keystrokes. Mac applications and vo are very finger fussy
that way. Also if I want to read a specific area with the touch of a key
and only that area one must do a crude imitation on the mac. Those who had
dos experience can think of many more. It is now the reality that many
blind folk today have always only known a gui and don't reailize what we
old dos users miss.
In part I got the imac hoping screen access had improved over those in
windows I had experienced breifly some years ago. It has not improved to
anything like dos access. I had particular interest to use speech in the
mac terminal but while it is workable it again can not approach dos access.
The terminal is the closest one gets to dos in a mac. So I concieved the
idea of hooking a dos machine to the mac to use it in terminal with all the
power that dos access provides.
The dos machine is on a 4 inch square mother board and is a complete
computer with multiple ports and connectivity. This includes network and
usb ports. It makes no sound at all as it has no fans nor moving parts
because it uses a flash chip as a hard drive and a wall wart for a power
source. While I run dos, it can run any os that also uses 8086 chips. I
use a memory stick as one would a floppy disk such as when having to boot
outside the hard drive during trouble shooting.
I use a serial port to connect to a mac usb port with an adaptor. This
allows me to use dos screen reading and communications software. The
latter has a powerful macro language and engine so while I'm on the mac or
internet I can do very complex things with a keystroke, or because it can
use text as a trigger it can do things automatically. Logins for example
are done automattically with no input from me.
Best of all all the power of a dos screen access program is there for use
in the mac terminal that vo just does not have at this point.
I'm as happy as a pig in mud, I have the power of dos in terminal and on
the internet and the mac gui for anything I might find it might do better.
XB
IC|XC
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