Hi, all. By way of introduction, I'm a sighted friend of Amanda Lacy.
I've been working with her for a few years on various projects.
Our working name for the note taker (really, a blind-friendly handheld
personal computer) is "Perky", because we plan to include a chorded,
Perkins-style keyboard.
We're still in the early prototyping phase, but a kickstarter (etc)
launch might be a possibility at some point. We'd like to keep the
parts cost under $100, allowing an affordable kit or finished unit.
In any case, we'll use open source hardware and software, so others
can build on our work.
Raspberry VI
Raspberry VI seems like a great starting point for the system software,
but I've been having problems in finding out specific information about
the system. As I understand it, the distribution adds several features
to Raspbian Lite (Jessie):
- Mate - desktop environment, based on GNOME 2
- Orca - graphical screen reader for GNOME
- Piespeakup - espeakup for the Raspberry Pi
- Speakup - console screen reader
Q: Is anything missing from this list, incorrect, etc?
Q: Where can I find information on the build process?
Q: Is there a public repository for the build tree?
I've downloaded and unpacked the archive, but I haven't loaded the image
onto an SD card yet, let alone booted the system. Once I do this, where
might I find build-related documentation, etc?
Preferences
I'd like to know more about folks' preferences in this sort of device.
Here are some starting points for discussion...
We're thinking about having two rows of eight chordable buttons for input.
This could support 6 or 8 dot braille, emulate a Morse code key or paddle,
etc. A standard keyboard could also be attached via Bluetooth or USB. Is
there any other input device we should consider adding?
We've considered two candidates for the computer. The RasPi Zero W (ZW) is
small, inexpensive, and uses very little power. However, it only has one
USB port and one CPU core. The RasPi 3 Model B (3B) has four USB ports and
four cores. However, it is larger, more expensive, and more power-hungry.
A set of three 18650 Lithium-Ion batteries can hold about 8000 mAh of charge
at 3.7 VDC. This can power a ZW for about 100 hours (four days) or a 3B for
about 30 hours (1+ day). Which is more important to you: speed or duration?
Any other constructive comments or feedback would be most welcome!
-r
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich Morin rdm@xxxxxxxx
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume San Bruno, CA, USA +1 650-873-7841
Software system design, development, and documentation
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