Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:28:46 -0600 From: Martin McCormick <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Trying to build 8.0 Headless Installation Disk Message-ID: <201001152129.o0FLSkR0070219@dc.cis.okstate.edu>
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Thank you. I will get one of those mfs-enabled 8.0 CD's and have at it. All the boxes we need to upgrade have at least a gig of RAM so this should be the answer. Tim Judd writes: > I'm surprised on how far braille has gotten onto computer systems. Yes. I am sory that this is a bit off-topic, but there is an open-source Braille translation software project. The kind of Braille that true Braille readers read is called Grade 2 Braille. It might remind one of shorthand because the idea is to pack as much information in to the available space as possible since the size of a Braille symbol is relatively fixed because the last time I checked, human fingers are still being made in roughly the same size range that they have been made for the last 500,000 years or so. There are symbols that stand for larger words or common groups of letters such as er, ar, the and for and lots of rules as to when to spell out those letters or use the symbol. Generally, the symbol is used when it doesn't bridge syllables. It can be computerized, but it is not trivial as some of the decisions are based on context. The same 6-dot Braille cell system has been adapted to all the world's languages so there is Arabic Braille, Chinese Braille with all the rules that apply to that language. I do not know this, but I imagine that the reading sense of whether to read from left to right or right to left is preserved for that language, also. If an English Braille reader picked up a page of Braille written in Arabic, for example, it would have the familiar feel of Braille, but it would be totally incomprehensible, even as to whether or not it was right side up.
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