[BRLTTY] brltty windows version and braillenote

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Here's some free advice. It might be worth every penny of it... <grin>

Someone else reported that the BrailleNote currently doesn't work in the 
Windows version and that one of the developers indicated a quick solution is 
not feasible at this time.

However, you can get a working system quite easily. It's not very elegant 
and takes up a bit more disk space, but it does work. Note that it will take 
effect only for console applications - i.e., the DOS box and programs that 
run in it.

What you do is to install a minimal Cygwin system and include Accessibility. 
This will get you a working brltty which does include the BrailleNote. It's 
not hard, but there are several steps you need to take.

To do it:

1. Go to www.cygwin.com and click on the "Install Cygwin now" link. This 
will download a program called setup.exe.

2. Run this program. Take all the defaults until you're presented with a 
list of mirrors. Choose one or more mirrors that are near you.

3. On the next screen your PC cursor is on a checkbox that says `Curr'. You 
must now use your mouse emulator. Starting from this checkbox, go down 3 
lines or so to a line that begins: "Accessibility Default". Left click on 
the word Default and it will change to Install. Then press Enter, wait for 
things to download, and press Enter on the Finish button.

4. In the Windows Run dialog, type:

c:\cygwin\bin\brltty.exe -b bn -d serial:ttyS0 -<other options as needed>

Note that this command is case sensitive, so be sure to use the uppercase S 
as indicated above.

This will probably fail with some missing routines. Find their location(s) 
and add them to the Windows Path variable. Do this repeatedly until you can 
run brltty from the Run dialog.

Now any time you run a console application you'll have brltty controlling 
the braille device. You may have to convince your Windows screen reader to 
get out of the way (in Jaws, for example, enable Braille Sleep Mode for any 
applications where you want brltty to work).

I suggested this to someone before but never heard anything. I don't know 
whether they tried it or whether they had any unforeseen problems. Please 
let us know how it works for you so I don't keep burdening the list, 
especially if it doesn't work (but I think it will).

Good luck,

-- 

Lee Maschmeyer
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan, USA