Drivers/Braille/MultiBraille/README - brltty - Git at Google

 Version V1.0, March/April 2000

 Driver for Tieman B.V.'s MultiBraille series

 Copyright (C) 2000 by Wolfgang Astleitner.
 ( Modification of CombiBraille-driver:
   Copyright (C) 1995, 1996 by Nikhil Nair.
 )

 This driver is part of BRLTTY, and as such it is placed under the
 terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free
 Software Foundation.  Please see the file LICENSE-LGPL in the top-level
 directory for details.

 This driver is maintained by Wolfgang Astleitner <wolfgang.astleitner@liwest.at>.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 SUPPORTED HARDWARE
 ==================

 This driver has only been tested on a "tieman Braillenotebook V2.1" with a
 build-in MultiBraille MB145CR, but the following hardware should also be
 supported:

 - Brailleline 125 (MB125CR)
 - Brailleline 145 (MB145CR) / PICO II
 - Brailleline 185 (MB185CR)

 I received the technical documentation for these displays from tieman germany
 and developed the driver so that it should be able to identify the above listed
 displays.

 Problem:
 the tech. doc. is poor (I know that my spoken/written english is not
 good, but what I saw there made me believe that I am a native speaker ;-)
 You have to be very creative to get something out from these docs...
 A lot of trial and error-programming...

 I did not include support for the speech synthesiser yet.
 Mainly because I didn't get the clue how to realize it - the section in the
 tech. docs about this is too poor or I didn't just get it ...


 CONFIGURATION AND COMPILATION
 =============================

 For general information about configuring and compiling BRLTTY, please
 see the BRLTTY manual.

 Any MultiBraille-specific configuration is done by editing the
 braille.h file in this directory.  However, such configuration is
 probably unnecessary as the display size is autodetected during
 initialisation at run-time.

 By default, BRLTTY can be started even if the MultiBraille is switched
 off or not connected - it will wait in the background, checking every
 five seconds for a display.  This behaviour can be changed by
 adjusting the values of ACK_TIMEOUT and MAX_ATTEMPTS.

 The driver should probably set the autorepeat delay and rate of the
 Braille display's keys during initialisation.  This is yet to be
 implemented.

 The braille dot keys, the front keys and 3 cursor routing keys can be
 customized in 'tables.h' (read also below).


 GETTING STARTED
 ===============

 The MultiBraille must be connected to the serial device you chose
 during configuration, unless of course you use the -d option to
 BRLTTY.  The serial interface must be selected; this is done by
 holding the left-most thumb key while turning on the display.  BRLTTY
 should then display its startup message before starting to echo the
 screen.


 KEY BINDINGS
 ============

 The key bindings - particularly with regard to the Braille dot keys -
 have been redesigned from the DOS driver provided with the
 CombiBraille.  However, the five thumb keys work similarly.  If we
 label them A to E from left to right, then A is FWINLT (go left one
 full window width), B is LNUP (go up one line), D is LNDN (go down one
 line) and E is FWINRT (go right one full window width).  C toggles
 cursor tracking, so C twice moves the window to the cursor position.

 This can be customized in 'tables.h' (array cmd_T_trans[]).

 The extra cursor routing key (over the gap between the status cells
 and the main display) is used to bring up the help screen.  Pressing
 this key again goes back to normal operation.  The help screen has a
 full list of key bindings (apart from the cursor routing keys); it can
 be found in plain text format in the file help.txt in this
 directory.  The dot keys have been numbered (from left to right): 3,
 2, 1, 4, 5, 6; capital letters in brackets refer to thumb keys,
 e.g. (A) means A alone and (CC) means C twice.

 All functions bound to the thumb keys can also be executed by using
 the Braille dot keys.  The converse, however, is not the case, as
 there are far more available combinations of Braille dot keys than of
 thumb keys.

 The commands bound to the Braille dot keys can be customized in 'tables.h'
 (array cmd_S_trans[]).

 Cursor Routing Keys
 -------------------

 The keys above the 20/40/80 cells of the main display can be used for
 a more accurate form of cursor routing, specifying that particular
 position rather than the start of the Braille window.

 The extra six cursor routing keys have special meanings.  The sixth
 from the left toggles help mode; the fifth is the RESET button and
 the fourth is the CONFMENU button.
 Key number 1 seems to do nothing (not connected? - tech. doc says something
 about that - funny, why then even put it there ????)

 Cursor routing keys 4 to 6 can be customized in 'tables.h', array cmd_R_trans[].

 Special Cut Function
 --------------------

 The main cursor routing keys, together with the leftmost two of the
 working extra ones (key number 2 and 3), can be used for a more advanced
 form of cutting.

 To mark the top left corner of the rectangle to be cut, press the
 leftmost cursor routing key followed immediately by the one over the
 appropriate cell.  Then, to mark the bottom right corner, press the
 second cursor routing key followed immediately by the one over the
 appropriate cell.


 THE STATUS CELLS
 ================

 The status cells are used slightly differently from the DOS driver.
 The first four cells are used to denote the positions of the cursor
 and the Braille window, and form two lines of four numbers.  The top
 line is the cursor position in the format CCRR where CC is the column
 number and RR is the row number.  The second line is the window
 position in the same format.  The top left corner of the screen is
 0000, in this notation.

 The fifth status cell is a set of flags, as follows:

 Dot Number      Dot Present Means
      1          The screen is frozen
      2          Attribute display is on
      3          Audio signals are on
      4          The cursor is visible
      5          Cursor shape is block
      6          Cursor blink is on
      7          Cursor tracking is on
      8          Sliding window is on


 THANKS
 ======

 Guenter Grill   The owner of the braille display
 (owner)         Testing, tips, phone calls to tieman germany and netherl.
                 to organise technical documentation (was a really hard job -
                 tieman ignored my emails, but Guenter didn't give up calling -
                 finally we've received the needed information ;-)

 Mario Lang      Tips, explanations, ...
 (TU Graz)       Mario is also using linux and brltty and he had access to a
                 combibraille. So he could help me finding the differences
                 between CombiBraille and MultiBraille

 Nicolas Pitre   For always emailing back so fast when I needed some
 (brltty)        information about brltty itself

 tieman          For sending me technical documentation


 PERSONAL NOTES
 ==============

 I myself can't read braille. Neither with sensing nor visually.
 For me it's absolutely impressing how blind people work on computers
 using a braille display that only displays 40 chars / 1 line.
 The information (the whole screen) needs to be 'rebuilt internally'.
 I even can't remember a number with six digits ... It is amazing to me.

 My favorite resolution is 1280x1024. This is what blind people only can
 dream about. When writing this driver I came in contact with the 'other
 world'. A world without coloured text, fat-printing, highlighted text,
 and so on - finally I learned to use 'lynx'! (I began to like this tool).

 At the beginning I only thought that I need to install linux on Guenter's
 notebook.
 But - his braille display wasn't supported. So I wrote this driver. I learned
 many new things when writing the driver and I hope that this driver will help
 many people who need braille displays. It was my first contact with braille and
 I hope the result is not that bad ;-)

 If you find bugs, have some comments (solving something in a better way, ..),
 please contact me:

 Wolfgang Astleitner
 Email: wolfgang.astleitner@liwest.at

 Problem: Responses will take some time because I am not the owner of the
 braille-notebook. So if I want to build in improvements I have to borrow
 the notebook from Guenter again!


 PS: Please don't mind my english. As I wrote before, it's not good...


 *******
 This readme is mainly based on CombiBraille/README
 Nikhil Nair
 Trinity College, CAMBRIDGE, CB2 1TQ, England
 Tel.: +44 1223 368353
 Email: nn201@cus.cam.ac.uk
	Version V1.0, March/April 2000

	Driver for Tieman B.V.'s MultiBraille series

	Copyright (C) 2000 by Wolfgang Astleitner.
	( Modification of CombiBraille-driver:
	Copyright (C) 1995, 1996 by Nikhil Nair.
	)

	This driver is part of BRLTTY, and as such it is placed under the
	terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free
	Software Foundation. Please see the file LICENSE-LGPL in the top-level
	directory for details.

	This driver is maintained by Wolfgang Astleitner <wolfgang.astleitner@liwest.at>.

	-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

	SUPPORTED HARDWARE
	==================

	This driver has only been tested on a "tieman Braillenotebook V2.1" with a
	build-in MultiBraille MB145CR, but the following hardware should also be
	supported:

	- Brailleline 125 (MB125CR)
	- Brailleline 145 (MB145CR) / PICO II
	- Brailleline 185 (MB185CR)

	I received the technical documentation for these displays from tieman germany
	and developed the driver so that it should be able to identify the above listed
	displays.

	Problem:
	the tech. doc. is poor (I know that my spoken/written english is not
	good, but what I saw there made me believe that I am a native speaker ;-)
	You have to be very creative to get something out from these docs...
	A lot of trial and error-programming...

	I did not include support for the speech synthesiser yet.
	Mainly because I didn't get the clue how to realize it - the section in the
	tech. docs about this is too poor or I didn't just get it ...


	CONFIGURATION AND COMPILATION
	=============================

	For general information about configuring and compiling BRLTTY, please
	see the BRLTTY manual.

	Any MultiBraille-specific configuration is done by editing the
	braille.h file in this directory. However, such configuration is
	probably unnecessary as the display size is autodetected during
	initialisation at run-time.

	By default, BRLTTY can be started even if the MultiBraille is switched
	off or not connected - it will wait in the background, checking every
	five seconds for a display. This behaviour can be changed by
	adjusting the values of ACK_TIMEOUT and MAX_ATTEMPTS.

	The driver should probably set the autorepeat delay and rate of the
	Braille display's keys during initialisation. This is yet to be
	implemented.

	The braille dot keys, the front keys and 3 cursor routing keys can be
	customized in 'tables.h' (read also below).


	GETTING STARTED
	===============

	The MultiBraille must be connected to the serial device you chose
	during configuration, unless of course you use the -d option to
	BRLTTY. The serial interface must be selected; this is done by
	holding the left-most thumb key while turning on the display. BRLTTY
	should then display its startup message before starting to echo the
	screen.


	KEY BINDINGS
	============

	The key bindings - particularly with regard to the Braille dot keys -
	have been redesigned from the DOS driver provided with the
	CombiBraille. However, the five thumb keys work similarly. If we
	label them A to E from left to right, then A is FWINLT (go left one
	full window width), B is LNUP (go up one line), D is LNDN (go down one
	line) and E is FWINRT (go right one full window width). C toggles
	cursor tracking, so C twice moves the window to the cursor position.

	This can be customized in 'tables.h' (array cmd_T_trans[]).

	The extra cursor routing key (over the gap between the status cells
	and the main display) is used to bring up the help screen. Pressing
	this key again goes back to normal operation. The help screen has a
	full list of key bindings (apart from the cursor routing keys); it can
	be found in plain text format in the file help.txt in this
	directory. The dot keys have been numbered (from left to right): 3,
	2, 1, 4, 5, 6; capital letters in brackets refer to thumb keys,
	e.g. (A) means A alone and (CC) means C twice.

	All functions bound to the thumb keys can also be executed by using
	the Braille dot keys. The converse, however, is not the case, as
	there are far more available combinations of Braille dot keys than of
	thumb keys.

	The commands bound to the Braille dot keys can be customized in 'tables.h'
	(array cmd_S_trans[]).

	Cursor Routing Keys
	-------------------

	The keys above the 20/40/80 cells of the main display can be used for
	a more accurate form of cursor routing, specifying that particular
	position rather than the start of the Braille window.

	The extra six cursor routing keys have special meanings. The sixth
	from the left toggles help mode; the fifth is the RESET button and
	the fourth is the CONFMENU button.
	Key number 1 seems to do nothing (not connected? - tech. doc says something
	about that - funny, why then even put it there ????)

	Cursor routing keys 4 to 6 can be customized in 'tables.h', array cmd_R_trans[].

	Special Cut Function
	--------------------

	The main cursor routing keys, together with the leftmost two of the
	working extra ones (key number 2 and 3), can be used for a more advanced
	form of cutting.

	To mark the top left corner of the rectangle to be cut, press the
	leftmost cursor routing key followed immediately by the one over the
	appropriate cell. Then, to mark the bottom right corner, press the
	second cursor routing key followed immediately by the one over the
	appropriate cell.


	THE STATUS CELLS
	================

	The status cells are used slightly differently from the DOS driver.
	The first four cells are used to denote the positions of the cursor
	and the Braille window, and form two lines of four numbers. The top
	line is the cursor position in the format CCRR where CC is the column
	number and RR is the row number. The second line is the window
	position in the same format. The top left corner of the screen is
	0000, in this notation.

	The fifth status cell is a set of flags, as follows:

	Dot Number Dot Present Means
	1 The screen is frozen
	2 Attribute display is on
	3 Audio signals are on
	4 The cursor is visible
	5 Cursor shape is block
	6 Cursor blink is on
	7 Cursor tracking is on
	8 Sliding window is on


	THANKS
	======

	Guenter Grill The owner of the braille display
	(owner) Testing, tips, phone calls to tieman germany and netherl.
	to organise technical documentation (was a really hard job -
	tieman ignored my emails, but Guenter didn't give up calling -
	finally we've received the needed information ;-)

	Mario Lang Tips, explanations, ...
	(TU Graz) Mario is also using linux and brltty and he had access to a
	combibraille. So he could help me finding the differences
	between CombiBraille and MultiBraille

	Nicolas Pitre For always emailing back so fast when I needed some
	(brltty) information about brltty itself

	tieman For sending me technical documentation


	PERSONAL NOTES
	==============

	I myself can't read braille. Neither with sensing nor visually.
	For me it's absolutely impressing how blind people work on computers
	using a braille display that only displays 40 chars / 1 line.
	The information (the whole screen) needs to be 'rebuilt internally'.
	I even can't remember a number with six digits ... It is amazing to me.

	My favorite resolution is 1280x1024. This is what blind people only can
	dream about. When writing this driver I came in contact with the 'other
	world'. A world without coloured text, fat-printing, highlighted text,
	and so on - finally I learned to use 'lynx'! (I began to like this tool).

	At the beginning I only thought that I need to install linux on Guenter's
	notebook.
	But - his braille display wasn't supported. So I wrote this driver. I learned
	many new things when writing the driver and I hope that this driver will help
	many people who need braille displays. It was my first contact with braille and
	I hope the result is not that bad ;-)

	If you find bugs, have some comments (solving something in a better way, ..),
	please contact me:

	Wolfgang Astleitner
	Email: wolfgang.astleitner@liwest.at

	Problem: Responses will take some time because I am not the owner of the
	braille-notebook. So if I want to build in improvements I have to borrow
	the notebook from Guenter again!


	PS: Please don't mind my english. As I wrote before, it's not good...


	*******
	This readme is mainly based on CombiBraille/README
	Nikhil Nair
	Trinity College, CAMBRIDGE, CB2 1TQ, England
	Tel.: +44 1223 368353
	Email: nn201@cus.cam.ac.uk