Linux on access technology

[Janina Sajka]

I wish I still had mine. What those units do, they did quite well, once
it became possible to back up your data (floppy or serial).

Levelstar tried to create a modern equivalent, but the Braille Plus 18
is nowhere near as responsive or task reliable. Perhaps Marc made a
mistake trying to go with Android instead of sticking with native Linux
as he had with the Icon.

The Icon actually came close, but it had a serious hardware flaw, namely
that long proprietary USB connector port that weakens from weight over
time. And, the Icon has no braille display. The BP was supposed to add
that, but it also brought the good and the bad of Android.

Now I have a BP18 I almost never use, though it's display is quite nice
braille.

And, my Icon sits in a drawer unrechargeable.

Janina

Kirk Reiser writes:
> Just as a point of interest, my wife uses her braillite-40
> everyday. We replaced the batteries and charging circuit with more
> modern ones about ten years ago. She really likes it and is always
> worrying about what she'll do when we can't repair hers any
> longer. It's editor is clunky but beats the shit out of the editor in
> devices like the Alva units.
> 
> 
> On Tue, 24 May 2016, Tom Fowle wrote:
> 
> > I worked on a project to try to develop a TTY modem for the Braille Lite,
> > Dean was extremely tight about giving me any info about how the lite was
> > done.  I believe they used a Hitachi HD64180 microprocessor which was a Z80
> > offshoot. Pretty sure they had no more than about 2 megs of ram and probably
> > 64K of eprom Don't know about the clockspeed but bet it was pretty
> > kreeky. I don't believe it was ever field upgradable, Dean said
> > something to me
> > about using Ymodem to upload programs and having nothing but trouble with
> > it.
> > Considering the instability of the hardware I think it'd be a bucket of
> > squashed worms.
> > Tom fowle
> > 
> > On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 08:48:08PM -0500, Glenn wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > I am wondering if anyone is working on a light-weight version of Linux to work on some of the legacy technology.
> > > I am thinking of devices such as a Braille Light 40 and the like.
> > > I don't know how much RAM these devices typically used, or if they can be upgraded, the last time I had one open for some battery work, it seemed that all the components are soldered down.
> > > I imagine that it would take a .BIN file to prompt it to load Linux.
> > > My thoughts are that it could give a bit more usefulness to these old devices.
> > > I think otherwise, it's just a clunky Braille display.
> > > Thanks for thoughts.
> > > Glenn
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup at linux-speakup.org
> > > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
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> 
> -- 
> Well that's it then, colour me secure!
> 
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-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa