clicky driver

[Gary Kline]

On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 10:01:31PM +0100, Polytropon wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:47:49 -0800, Gary Kline <kline at thought.org> wrote:
> > 	If someone in the kernel-side would work with me and add the 
> > 	Audio click, I will look at some of the netbooks to see how 
> > 	usable they are. 
> 
> One problem might occur when the desired device doesn't have
> a "PC speaker" functionality and only offers sound output
> through the sound card (inside the chipset, which is a chip,
> and mostly is the CPU itself). Programming a PC speaker beep
> is, as far as I can imagine, more simple to implement than
> a sound generation by the DSP (which requires a driver to
> do so).
> 

	at first I'm lookings for a "cots" (commericial, off-the-shelf)
	solution.  The XO has stereo speakers and so do the notebooks.  
	I am thinking of the 'PC speaker'; something that would sound for
	around a 25th/second, very low and with at least some loudness
	control.  

	The xset utility let me turn off repeating keys so that I
	do tyyyyyyyyyyyyype "type" that way.  xset also has a key-click
	setting for click and loudness.  Don't know about pitch.  That
	would need to be integrated with what I'm thinking of.

> 
> 
> > There are millions of people world-wide with
> > 	impaired speech who can type. 
> 
> There are also millions of blind people world-wide, but
> web developers don't pay any attention on them. :-)
> 


	There are a few who actually *do* have text-only pages.
	(That's another issue: getting espeak or festival to be
	able to read aloud: ``Hello, how's it going?'' ...)

	In the third-word are at least millions of disabled folks--
	mostly mouldering.  Some thinking: What the hey? Why not 
	blow myself up and then wake up in paradise? I'll get 70
	angels all to myself. Oh-boy.

	Education is the only solution, even tho it will take generations.
	That's why I think the XO is a win++

> 
> 
> > 	As a first cut, is there somebody on the kernel side I should check
> > 	with to see about adding a "click driver"?
> 
> You could initially have a look at the atkbd (or ukbd?)
> source files. Maybe just inserting some output of the
> ASCII character 0x07 (BEL) after each recognized keypress
> would be sufficient, but... no, it won't be that easy. :-)
> 

	Circa fall, 1999 I did this; it was almost concurrent with a 
	power-out-power-on-power-out-power-on  all within 7 of 8 seconds.
	That blew mt almost new 9.1G SCSI drive.  I said 'bleep it' and 
	quit.  ---this was when my shoulder started dislocate, &c, so...--

	Anyway, thanks for the clue, Polyt.   Anybody else?  I have written
	other k-side drivers, but that was in the mid-80s.  They are a bear 
	to test... .



> 
> -- 
> Polytropon
> Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...

-- 
 Gary Kline  kline at thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
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