[ale] geezer notice with meeting idea

[John G. Heim]

Just to be clear, I was talking about the CUI screen reader called speakup. 
I'm not sure you'd be able to find anyone who actually wanted this machine 
if you built it. The linux CUI has programs for everything and most of them 
are as good as their GUI equivalents. But if you give someone a machine with 
alpine and lynx, I'm not sure you'd be doing them a huge favor.

The only thing I can think of is that it might be of interest to some kid 
just trying to get started with linux. Of course, it seems kind of backward 
to give some blind kid the oldest machine you can put together. "Here you 
go, kid. We deliberately put together the crappiest machine we could but 
look, it talks. Pretty cool, eh?"

It *would* be cool though.

I think the screen reader for gnome, orca,  requires a minimum of a 1 Ghz 
processor and 512 Mb of RAM.

From: "Jim Kinney" <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: [ale] geezer notice with meeting idea


> How true! That older hardware is more robust than some of this newer 
> stuff.
>
> Hmm. A build-it demo to create a solid system for the blind would make a
> good group project. And we likely have enough older hardware around that
> would make a decent system or two. I know I have a pair of working
> P4/celeron level mobos with ram and sound. Not fast enough to run hulu in
> full screen mode but solid web browsers.
>
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 12:35 PM, John G. Heim <jheim at math.wisc.edu> 
> wrote:
>
>> You know, if you build that thing, it might have a practical use as a
>> computer for a blind person. Not that anyone would actually want it given
>> that in most communities you can pick up a P4 for nothing from someone 
>> who
>> doesn't want to pay the disposal fee.
>>
>> Still, I use my original pentium laptop with54 Mb of RAM practically 
>> every
>> day. You can install linux with speech, mail, web browser, text editor, 
>> etc
>> in less than 512 Mb.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Jim Kinney" <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
>> To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 9:20 AM
>> Subject: [ale] geezer notice with meeting idea
>>
>>
>> > Having participated in the "strut your geek cred stuff by showing off 
>> > the
>> > dusty crap you used, or worse, still have" discussion, it occurred to 
>> > me
>> > why
>> > the typical age of attendance at ALE meetings is rarely including those
>> > who
>> > cut their computer teeth on Win98.
>> >
>> > We are a bunch of crusty ol' farts and some of us have truly horrible
>> > pack-rat tendencies!
>> >
>> > Maybe we should have a meeting that is a show-n-tell session of old 
>> > gear
>> > that we can still _make_work_. Antiquated technologies demonstration.
>> > Maybe
>> > even some ancient Linux on floppy installs that can be done onto that 
>> > old
>> > 386 you know you still have.
>> >
>> > I'm sure Aaron has an amiga (or twelve) he could demo. :-)
>> >
>> > Hmm. What is the oldest rig we can scrounge, slap Linux on it and add 
>> > as
>> > many externals as possible and make it all work. Dual monitor i386SX 
>> > with
>> > ata & scsi and floppy with network card, modem, scanner, ham rig,
>> printer,
>> > sound card, etc...
>> >
>> > --
>> > --
>> > James P. Kinney III
>> > Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
>> > Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
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>> >
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> -- 
> James P. Kinney III
> Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
> Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits
>


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