Thanks to brosz for
this link.
“The instruction metaphors used by modern graphical user
interfaces like MacOS or Windows do not have any meaning for blind
people – Icons can neither be expressed in Braille nor read out.
Graphical interfaces are accessible to a certain degree with
special software like JAWS for Windows but instead of being helpful
they usually resemble more of an obstacle.”
“Accordingly blind computer users still favor the text oriented
DOS. But is does not offer any multitasking and only rudimentary
network functionality. Linux is a real alternative here: it has
much greater capabilities and is more comfortable while it can
still be fully operated from the command line.”
“Currently there are still text oriented console applications
written for Linux, while there is no development under DOS, hardly
any maintenance for existing software and new hardware is almost
not supported anymore. On top of that Linux is significantly more
stable and secure than DOS – in an appropriate configuration wrong
inputs under Linux do not trigger a crash or cause the destruction
of the system.”
“To improve Linux support for the blind Hans Zöbelein
started to connect and coordinate the already existing worldwide
initiatives in summer 1996. The hobby programmer from Munich
founded a mailing list that today has more than 250 members. The
name of the project: Blinux [2], combined from the words ‘blind’
and ‘Linux’. So far the focus of the work has been on collecting
and further developing software that allows blind people access to
the Linux computer…”