[BRLTTY] Alva?
Dave Mielke
dave at mielke.cc
Tue Jun 28 21:35:31 EDT 2011
[quoted lines by Lee Maschmeyer on 2011/06/28 at 19:05 -0400]
>Are Alva braille displays very well supported?
Yes. All known models.
>When I first started using brltty back in about 2001, they removed support for
>the parallel port on the Alva ABT340 because the parallel driver was not open
>source. And at least once somebody reported on the list that they had called
>Alva about getting specs for how to drive a display and were told that they'd
>write a driver for Linux sometime or other (but that wouldn't do us any good
>because it wouldn't be open source).
i'm actually prepared to take a go at providing open source support for the
parallel port on old Alva models. The only thing stopping me, really, at this
point is access to an actual device.
>I'm thinking of getting a new braille display in the next few months, probably
>one that has bluetooth.
The only braille display which offers Bluetooth but for which brltty doesn't
yet support Bluetooth is the Braille Note. Again, the only obstacle is access
to a device.
>So: Are all Alva displays supported?
Yes, they all are. The BC models need a recent enough version of the firmware
else they don't work properly via USB on Linux. I'm not sure if they come from
the factory with a new enough version of the firmware or not. The upgrade is
easy enough to do, though.
>I use a serial-connected Alva at work so at least some of them are. Is there
>anything by that or any other company that isn't supported by brltty?
The only two things that aren't supported have already been discussed above:
old Alvamodels via a parallel port, and Braille Note via Bluetooth.
--
Dave Mielke | 2213 Fox Crescent | The Bible is the very Word of God.
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario | 2011 May 21 is the End of Salvation.
EMail: dave at mielke.cc | Canada K2A 1H7 | 2011 Oct 21 is the End of the World.
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