mastodon - Link to source
early days, but it works: eurpod.com/synths/blazie-emu.z… - use the unit menu to choose firmware, alt+shift+F if on qwerty Type N Speak to get to menus easily. Flash disk state is saved in appdata but in Blazie's format for now, not sure if a .img export will be done before 0.7 is out but at least it'll work well enough.

reshared this

in reply to Devin Prater :blind:
glitchsoc - Link to source

Kara Goldfinch

@pixelate This is the best one I tried.
github.com/masonasons/BNEmu

GitHub - masonasons/BNEmu: QEMU machine type that boots the HumanWare VoiceNote QT / BrailleNote mPower firmware: Windows CE 4.2 and KeySoft 8.0 on a PXA270. VBNote reimplemented on QEMU's JIT. Assistive-technology preservation; not a HumanWare product an

QEMU machine type that boots the HumanWare VoiceNote QT / BrailleNote mPower firmware: Windows CE 4.2 and KeySoft 8.0 on a PXA270. VBNote reimplemented on QEMU's JIT. Assistive-technology prese...
GitHub
@Devin Prater :blind:
in reply to Devin Prater :blind:
glitchsoc - Link to source

Kara Goldfinch

@pixelate It[s a really interesting time to be in as far as emulation is concerned. I've said for years that there needs to be emulators of blind tech like there is for pretty much every obscure mainstream computer. I mean look there's at least one till in MAME. It's finally happening.
@Devin Prater :blind:
in reply to Devin Prater :blind:
gotosocial - Link to source

Derek Roberts

Not yet, but I can, along with the prosody config I was testing with. I've pondered making that prosody a bridge component, so people could connect to actual stuff and still use keychat in its optimal environment... Haven't done it yet, but federated keychat bridges is about the craziest, and yet still most accessible, jabber you get these days, unless I'm missing stuff.

Anyone is welcome, after they've tried keychat, to tell me I'm missing stuff, I'd be very happy to know. It'd be way less depressing.

in reply to Derek Roberts
mastodon - Link to source

Devin Prater :blind:

@tcikoritys @KaraLG84 Yes please! I thought about using something like Edbrowse to modernize keyweb, and having Keymail use the same thing from Thunderbird where you just type your email address and it fills in the imap/smtp stuff.
@Kara Goldfinch @Derek Roberts
in reply to Devin Prater :blind:
gotosocial - Link to source

Derek Roberts

You'd be in for a lot with that, but hey, if you have the credit, give it your best, or worst shot LOL. I'll investigate doing a proper fork thing next time I'm on that machine. For now, it's fake dialup, using the internal modem. All of that's documented (fair warning: claudespeak, automatically written, not intended for anything vaguely resembling public consumption) and I cannot guarantee it will work at all on your combination of os and os accessories.
in reply to Jayson Smith
mastodon - Link to source

bscross32

@jaybird110127 It definitely takes the date and time, but the firmware seems to not think the clock has been set. I haven't tested enough to know whether it keeps time accurately or not. Personally, I wouldn't really care about that, just having the clock messages go away would be sweet, because they tend to repeat several times in a row.
@Jayson Smith
in reply to Jayson Smith
mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@jaybird110127 We're on it now: first working out exactly which clock device the firmware talks to, by watching what it reads and writes when you set and check the time, then emulating it properly so the time runs and is saved with your unit. Same story for holding I-chord through the P-chord L reboot: right now the emulator only sends a chord when you let go, so a chord held across a reboot never arrives as held. Fixing that too.
@Jayson Smith
in reply to Timothy Wynn
glitchsoc - Link to source

Jayson Smith

@twynn It asks about initializing the flash system. Then when you answer Yes, then again that you're sure, it doesn't seem to actually do anything. Iirc on a real TNS it'd do some cool high-pitched beeps while it was erasing the flash memory.
@Timothy Wynn
in reply to Tamas G
mastodon - Link to source

Tom Grant

@jaybird110127 I had no idea you had to emulate the clock yourself. I thought it was all to do with your system clock. How does it work for battery? I'm not very good at building at all so couldn't help with the visual studio build tools. And Timathy Wynn mentioned a BNS, we only have BrailleLite 2000 and TNS. Or am I now outdated? I only got the first early release of this thing. And have a great time on the cruze Tamas
@Jayson Smith
in reply to Jage
glitchsoc - Link to source

Jayson Smith

@Jage Given the fact that the firmware is a separate file, I'd be curious what would happen if you tried to run a firmware update program on the unit itself. Of course before I can do that I have to get the file to the unit in the first place.
@Jage
in reply to Jayson Smith
mastodon - Link to source

Jage

@jaybird110127 This does very little, but you can list/get/put files on a .state file. It does not have much error checking and is barely tested. Lots of things may break, so back up your .state file first, but it may work to add some files. Feel free to modify or whatnot.
dropbox.com/scl/fi/04vvoq201u5…

bns.py

Shared with Dropbox
Dropbox
@Jayson Smith
in reply to Steve
glitchsoc - Link to source

Jayson Smith

@sclower BTW, I'm geeky enough that I'd have a BT Speak of my own except that I seriously doubt I'd use it for much other than playing around with it, and it's just not worth what it costs for as little as I'd use it.
@Steve
This entry was edited (Thursday, October 1, 2026, 12:29 AM)
in reply to Tamas G
mastodon - Link to source

Steve

@jaybird110127 I appreciate all the work you've put into this. I sent you a PR to add some tighter BT Speak/Brl integration for when you return. Running these emulators on the successor is really trippy.
@Jayson Smith
in reply to Steve
glitchsoc - Link to source

Jayson Smith

@sclower I actually had a few cool thoughts about this. I don't own a BT product, but my thoughts were any chance of passing the real hardware's battery percentage and charge status to the emulated hardware, where supported? Also, any chance of running an emulated Blazie disk drive while emulated hardware runs for a cool legacy way to transfer files between real and emulated hardware?
@Steve
in reply to Steve
mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@sclower love love your PR which also makes it a .deb package. Strongly in the queue for 0.8 when I'm back, but I'm glad Leo's initial version works well on BTSpeak's today, so folks have something to play with whilst I'm out. That was the main goal. @pixelate @mcourcel @jaybird110127
@Jayson Smith @Devin Prater :blind: @Martin @Steve
in reply to Tamas G
mastodon - Link to source

Steve

@pixelate @mcourcel @jaybird110127 Yep, I'm responding to your comments and will have something pushed shortly. I didn't realize someone else was also working on that-- interesting how much of our changes overlapped. Enjoy the cruise.
@Jayson Smith @Devin Prater :blind: @Martin
in reply to Steve
mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@sclower Thanks Steve! No rush at all, it's lined up for 0.8. You and Leo found the same hardware on your own, which tells me you both got it right. I don't have a BT Unit here myself to test with, so real users for me is what counted on this one. Leo's front end is on main now, so rebasing onto it will be the tricky part. Sorry we didn't flag that sooner, next time I'll give a heads-up. I was just chatting with him over the phone, and he was super motivated to get out BTSpeak support in the Linux side of the emulator. I'll look at it properly when I'm back. Thanks for the wishes! @pixelate @mcourcel @jaybird110127
@Jayson Smith @Devin Prater :blind: @Martin @Steve
in reply to Tamas G
glitchsoc - Link to source

Jayson Smith

Hey I just saw your commits and rebuilt, thanks! One thing though, whenever you find time for it, it won't matter until next year. You actually need to use a year 28 years ago for the date. If you don't, there will be mismatches, and next year is one. The year 2027 is not a leap year but 2016 was. Only a Gregorian calendar geek would know this, huh?
in reply to David Goldfield
glitchsoc - Link to source

Jayson Smith

@DavidGoldfield @BorrisInABox One correction to what you put on a few lists. In TNS mode, F11 opens the menu, and when using either unit, there's an Exit choice in the menu. This is probably important to ensure the unit's state (RAM and flash) are properly saved.
@Borris @David Goldfield
in reply to Tamas G
mastodon - Link to source

Dane Stange

Hi there! Is there a GitHub repo for this? I just grabbed the zip—I’m Dane Stange, hoping to tinker with it, but I keep running into hiccups. Then I realized it’s Windows-only, so what’s the next step? I’d rather not reverse-engineer the EXE with AI; I figured someone might have asked for the source already. If not, we could build something ourselves if you’d prefer not to share it for safety reasons—totally understandable, lol. Still, we’ve come this far! Just know I won’t reverse the emulator without your okay; it’s something I’d rather avoid. One neat thing about AI is we can skip some limits. I don’t expect much from this request, but we’ll see. Hope you’re doing well and enjoyed your pizza pretzel! Also, I hope my focus on transparency and freedom hasn’t been too much. 😊
This entry was edited (Thursday, October 1, 2026, 6:06 AM)
in reply to Tamas G
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Peter Vágner

@Tamas G Oh sorry for the delay. I have just realized you have full BNS emulator up on github including an ability to run that slovak firmware.

It sounds fine, it handles punctuations and numbers. In fact it's reading numbers in the calculator by digits and numbers in the text as they should e.g 13 as thirteen.

Thanks for working on this.

@Tamas G