Talking bios

[Lorenzo Prince]

The famous speaker who no one had heard of said:
> But, I can promise you that people, in general, aren't going to want
> their computers chatting up the bios as the system boots. So, you're
> driven back to some mechanism to make that start. What would that be?

We can have the normal key that activates the non-self-voicing bios config utility and maybe shift or control with the 
same key to turn on the speech.  No need to press both key combos just one or the other.  E.G.press the delete key, 
(very common on many systems to activate bios config) to activate it without the voice, or press shift-delete to 
activate it with speech.  I never said it would be easy, or even widely accepted at first, I just would like for 
accessibility of the bios to end up like this maybe in a few years or so.  In the meantime, we can start with something 
that requires having another device connected, as this is what would work best with today's systems.

> And, how do you know when to engage that mechanism:? Please recognize
> that there was a minor war over putting a simple Ctrl-G into the GDM
> application to let us know that we could now login to the now speech
> enabled graphical desktop. We have one beep, sometimes, when bios leaves
> and system OS booting starts. I would expect major complaints over yet
> another beep.

Just a suggestion, but this could work... Most systems are setup so that as soon as you turn on the power you can press 
the bios key.  This would work just as well for the self-voicing bios utility.  No need to wait to hear a beep, as it's 
ready as soon as you hit the power button or as soon as the monitor reactivates if rebooting, and by the time you hear a 
beep, it's too late for a sighted person to press the bios key.

> Besides, how are you going to debug a badly behaving bios if you expect
> it to be self-voicing? And if it isn't self-voicing, how does it provide
> access except that it talks to some device that you hook up, which
> brings you full circle to where I reported on connecting a BNS to take
> advantage of serial terminal capacities in the DEC computer I have.

And how would you debug the bios if for whatever reason neither the voice nor the serial connectivity are working?  The 
idea of a self-voicicing bios with serial connectivity as a backup is probably the best option, as it adds a failsafe 
system where if one doesn't work the other will.

> I don't see how we get around the need to connect a smarter device to a,
> as yet very dumb system in order to fully satisfy our need to configure
> without sighted assistance.

Well, for now, I agree.  It's the best option for systoms of today.  But as bios apps get bigger and more complex, 
serial connectivity will only produce garbage in the future.  Eventually, even serial connectivity would have to be 
perfected so that only necessary information is spoken on the terminal device and so that things like pretty pictures 
aren't sent to the terminal device, which can't necessarily handle them.  The next step, by order of the progress of 
technology, is the self-voicing bios, which can be accessed separately at boot time, and is specifically designed to 
allow complete and perfect access to the bios configuration and any other apps or services provided in the bios.  This 
will undoubtedly take a lot of time, and it may need to be coded as an update for now, (an add-on or plugin to the 
existing bios), but eventually, it should be possible, especially with the Open-source community working on the project.  
There may be no need at all for the manufacturers to get involved.  Things like Linuxbios and the Open Bios Project may 
be the best to fill these needs.  Besides, companies that provide such technology usually like to provide it on a 
separate basis.  They will have products for sighted people and products for blind people, and the charge whatever they 
want for the products for blind people.  Either that, or they don't get involved at all, and a different company that 
only makes products for blind people will step in and say "Well.  Here is a major moneymaking opportunity.  Lets make a 
talking bios and put it on a 'blind-specific motherbord' and charge $$$$ for a $$$ board just because it talks."  That 
is why the open projects may be the best to fill this need rather than selling the idea to manufacturers who are using 
their own proprietary bios.  The trick then is to get the open project to be compatible with as many boards as possible, 
and this idea is a little easier to sell to the manufacturers of boards.

PRINCE