Linux on BrailleNotes

[Thomas Stivers]

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On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 08:32:05 AM -0500, Ann K. Parsons wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> No, the BrailleNote's OS is Window-CE, but it's interface is
> proprietory.  You cannot put Linux on it.  You can, however use BrlTTY
> with a PC running Linux.  Sorry, but that's the story.

Well when I got it my pc's OS was windows 98 and its interface was
claimed to pe proprietary. Windows CE isn't magic or anything, it runs
on processors just like linux. I believe the bn uses an xscale processor
or some such which if it isn't supported yet likely will be at some
point. A big difficulty likely to be encountered is with geting
specifications for the hardware out of humanware without them wanting an
NDA signed. That was IIRC a big part of the problem in supporting the
keynote synthesizers with speakup. Without specifications its left to
developers to reverse engineer protocols and such for using the
hardware. Given that we have a very limited group of developers, myself
definitely excluded, with the skills to do all this work and we don't
have the whole big world of linux developers hacking on braillenotes
linux on a bn isn't impossible by any means, but will take a lot of time
and interest from people with knowhow.

Well there's my take, and now its time for me to work on getting more of
that knowhow I was talking about.

P.S. if you really want linux, brltty, and speakup on a braillenote send
a BN to Linus, Kirk, and whoever the brltty guy is, and hell if you have
that kind of money you can send one my way too. *grin*

- -- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

Thomas Stivers	e-mail: stivers_t at tomass.dyndns.org
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