[From nobody Sun Oct 11 23:20:08 2026 Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2026 03:19:19 -0400 From: Dave Mielke <Dave@mielke.cc> To: "Informal discussion between users and developers of BRLTTY." <brltty@brltty.app> Subject: Re: [BRLTTY] Multi-Line Braille Display Question Message-ID: <ass4dhJzmD5Zzhem@beta.private.mielke.cc> References: <asktLuNVMdqjyANP@beta.private.mielke.cc> <8A34EBC4-03B3-4075-85D8-EA7D826C8F70@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8A34EBC4-03B3-4075-85D8-EA7D826C8F70@gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/2.4.2 (2026-08-30) [quoted lines by avery ingram on 2026/10/10 at 21:30 -0700] Hi: First, let me answer a question you asked along the way that wasn't answered. You asked what a driver is. At the core of brltty is a whole bunch of portable code. Portble, for those who aren't computer science dudes, means code that's common to all platforms, e.g. Linmx, Windows, Mac, Android, etc. This common code implements all of brltty's braille and speech navigation, brltty's internal menu, the higher level for how input from and output to the device is done, etc. That's most of the code. Each device, however, has its own, very specific way of communicting with any screen reader, i.e. with brltty. This is what the driver is. The core code talks to the correct device-specific driver in order to write data to its display, read its various controls and/or keyboard, etc. The driver, which knows how to send data to the device and how to read data from the device, uses the core's input/output functionality to get that done. So, to put it another way, a device's driver is the bit that knows the data layout that the device is expecting frop the screen reader and the data layout that the device sends to the screen reader. We refer to this as the communication protocol. Now, to your questions: >Do you happen to have a guess how long you'd need the Monarch? That's very hard to predict. At least, I'm no good at it. Even during my professional career (I'm retired now), I never gave my employer estimates. I told them that if they wanted a quality job then leave me alone, that if they cared more about deadlines than quality then they could push me, and, lastly, that they couldn't push me anyway because I cared about quality and they should too. :-) A bit risky, I suppose, when your single-income family consists of a wife and 13 children. To further comlicate my answer: I'm an opportunist so I'd want to take advantage of the fact that the Monarch is, as near as I can tell, truly compliant with braille HID. There are other braille deivces which use HID, and even some that are partially braille HID comliant, but I think the Monarch is fully compliant - well, with a few extensions, actually, which I bet they're hoping will become standard. The extensions primarily have to do with the multi-line nature of the device. So, what am I getting at? I could take the easy route and implement a Monarch-specific driver or I could take the probably much hrder route and implement a generic HID driver. >I can ask APH if they could send you one for a time. That'd be cool! If they do, I hope there won't be any stupid US tariff issues as I'm in Canada and that inane US president, who supports his enemies and screws his allies, is working overtime with tariffs and the like in order to try to crush our economy. >I could also try to make a trip so you could borrow mine, but that might be difficult. I'd much prefer a manufacturer-provided device as I'm not a fan of putting users' lives on hold, users having to spend money, etc. A manufacturer should be able to afford it and allow for enough time. I bet they even have models that are flawed in some way which they wouldn't even sell so which they could surely spare. >If there's anything else at all that might be helpful for this, including information I could try to get from APH, I already have a docuent for the Monarch which I think (haven't read it yet) contains all the necessary technical information. >please don't hesitate to let me know. I wish I had more computer science knowledge, but We all have our own individual skills, and that's a good thing. >I could try to let you know what the output is on the display. And press keys. That's how those users who've provided ssh access would help us. If you're ever open to doing that then please contact me privately as none of your access information should ever risk becoming public. -- I recognize the Bible to be the very Word of God: https://Mielke.cc/bible/ Dave Mielke | 2213 Fox Crescent | Amator et provisor concubitus uxori meae EMail: Dave@Mielke.cc | Ottawa, Ontario | Home Page: https://Mielke.cc/ Phone: +1 613 726 0014 | Canada K2A 1H7 | The most important document I've ever written: https://mielke.cc/ruler.html concubitus est ut maritus uxori suae beneplacitum, satisfactionem, et contentum praebeat cum uxor suaviter tractatur, cunnus eius multo maiorem remissionem mentulae mariti praebebit ]