interesting experiment.

[Adam Myrow]

A well-known trick to get old DOS screen readers to work in a DOS console
under Windows 9X is to add "switches=/c" to your config.sys and of course,
reboot.  I've never seen that switch documented by Microsoft, but I've
seen it mentioned in several DOS games that came out after Windows 95.  I
even remember reading a press release for ASAP bragging that you wouldn't
need to use "switches=/c" with ASAP because it was so advanced.  Doubt any
of those screen readers work with Win XP or 2K.  However, Speakup works
with several Linux distros, and is the only screen reader to provide
speech from power up to shut down.  It is free, too!  Despite my previous
grumbles about it not having certain features, it's still the best free
screen reader for any platform IMHO.