I wanted to pass this along to any who may be interested. Please note this
does *not* mean that there is a full working version of the Ultrasonix
screen reader for Linux X-Windows available. Also, beware that unless you
are a gradeAA Linux hacker and C++ programmer, do not download this! The
"bazaar" that Brian refers to is described in detail in the following
document:
http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar-
1.html
Brian has put an enormous amount of work into this effort, and we all owe
him a great deal of thanks. If you do meet the requirements above, please
contact Brian and give him a hand -- this project is doable and worthwhile,
so please pitch in if you can.
Thanks,
Jim
---------- Forwarded message: ----------
Hi folks,
Well, here we go. In the spirit of the Bizarre, I've made
a snapshot of Ultrasonix for immediate release.
Ultrasonix is a screen reader for the X Window System. It
was originally developed at Georgia Tech by Keith Edwards,
Beth Mynatt, and a host of others. It has since been released
for public hacking. Myself and several others have been doing
just that.
I'm releasing this snapshot now for two reasons. First, I
wanted to prove - once and for all - that we haven't been abducted
by aliens. I want to let those interested know that I'm still
at it, albeit slowly. Which brings me to my second reason -
I could really use some help. If you are a C++ developer, or play
one on tv, and are interested in contributing to this project,
please let me know. There is plenty to do, and it's a very
cool project.
Ok, back to the announcement...
Note that the word 'snapshot' is a warning flag. It means
that if you decide to download Ultrasonix, you should be
prepared to do some work to get something running. By
'work', I mean that you may need to upgrade your compiler,
TCL, or some system libraries. If you're not comfortable
doing things like building and installing libraries,
experimenting with window managers, and recovering from the
occasional lockup, maybe you should wait a little while. It'll
save you a lot of frustration. :-)
You'll have the most luck if your system is similar to mine.
Here's a breakdown:
RedHat 5.0 with all of the updates on an i586
A Dectalk Express synthesizer
Throw out the GNU 2.7.2.3 compiler and get
the EGCS 1.0.3 release, found at
http://egcs.cygnus.com/
AfterStep window manager version 1.4.X
You'll need to have installed the version of X which
came with RH 5.0 - XFree86-3.3.1-14.
This is a source-only release. I'll be adding binaries for
Ultrasonix, modified X libraries, RAP libraries, and so on
over the next several days.
You can get Ultrasonix by anonymous ftp at -
ftp://trace20.waisman.wisc.edu/pub/usonix/outgoing/Ultrasonix-52698.tar.gz
Here's what you get:
The Ultrasonix sources
The RAP library sources
The dectalkd sources
The patches to modify libX11 and libXt
I welcome your comments/recommendations, especially if
you know a thing or two about C++.
Finally, none of this would be possible without the expertise
and patience of Keith Edwards, Mark Novak, Will Walker,
Terry Barnaby, Joel Zimba, and Marty Geier, among others.
And I do all of my work in Emacspeak - thanks Raman!
Regards,
Brian.--text follows this line--
--
---------------
Brian L. Sellden - brian@henge.com, brians@usa.net
User of Emacspeak 8.0, making Unix talk.
http://www.henge.com/~brian
What on earth would a man do with himself
if something did not stand in his way?
-- H.G. Wells
------------------------------
Jim Rebman
University of Colorado, Boulder
College of Engineering and Applied Science
Technology - Enhanced Learning Laboratory
mailto:jrebman@schof.colorado.edu
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