Introduction.

[Rick Hayner <rhayner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

     Hello to all.

     I am 50 years of age, and totally blind with mild Cerebral Palsy
since birth.

     I have been a computer programmer for around 22 years.  I started
out on an old ibm 360-30 mainframe in assembly language, and also
learned COBOL on the same machine.  At Sinclair Community College, I
programmed an NCR Criterian Century 300 in COBOL.

     Then got a Ti-99-4a in 1982.  I could get it to talk a little by
sending stuff to it in ti basic.  It was treated like a file that you
had to open and print to.
     Next I had an Apple//e computer.  I learned applesoft basic, and
6502 assembly language on that.

     In 1988, I got my first ibm compatable micro computer.

     I now have a motherboard with an Amd k6 processor.  My system has
a usr 33.6k sportster modem, an accent speech synthesizer, which is
internal, 2 com ports, 1 parallel port, a 1.6gb hard drive, both 3.5
and 5.25 floppy drives, a 32x atapi cdrom drive, and a colorado power
tape 2.4gb tape drive.  I have 32mb of ram.  The sound and video are
both on the motherboard.  I'm running the tape drive off of an adaptec
1510 card along with an hp scanjet hpiip scanner.

     I'm usingMsdos, actually caldera drdos7.02, and windows3.1.  I
have windows95, but I absolutely hate it, and the only reason that
windows3.1 is on my computer is because my ocr software requires it.
I prefer command-line driven operating systems.

     Now to the reason for me asking Matt to add me to your list.  I
am trying to get Linux running on my machine.  I don't have the
correct speech synthesizer to use emacs speak, so I have an 80386
based computer running commo, a dos-based com program as a text
terminal to make linux talk.

     I probably screwed things up here, because I have an old version
of slackware Linux.  It wouldn't find my cd-rom drive, so I went on
the net and downloaded the boot and rootimages for slackware3.6.  It
found my cd-rom fine, and I have Linux up and talking, but my terminfo
file is missing, and I can't change the terminal type so I can use joe
to edit my configuration files.  Another problem is the Man pages
somehow didn't get installed.  Either that, or the paths to them are
setup wrong.  Every time I run the man command, it returns the message
error running the text formatting software. exiting with system error
and then a 5 digit number.

     I need a bunch of help.  I live in village apartments here in
Kalamazoo.  I would really appreciate getting to know you guys.  My
phone number is 372-1847.

     I can't come to all of your club meetings, because I sing in the
local barbershop chorus, which meets the same night at the westly
foundation on campus.  However, I could split the time between
barbershop and the club and come twice a month if someone would be
willing to pick me up.

     I really want to change over to Linux, because it's a good
multi-tasking operating system, and it's command-line driven.  Not
only that, I know and love C, and I understand that Linux is totally
written in C.  I would like to contribute to the Linux project and
help make it more accessable to people with all disabillities.

     I'm sorry for writing a book.  One other thing.  I purchased
Redhat Linux version 5.2, but I plan on shipping it back tuesday,
because I don't want an operating system that is impossible for me to
install by my self.  I plan on ordering Slackware Linux Version 3.6 as
soon as I get the money back from Redhat.  I would also trade the
Redhat package for a copy of the cd-roms for Slackware version 3.6.

     Thanks for your help.

     Sincerely,


Rick Hayner
rhayner@complink.net
amateur station: WA8JQV
Baritone: Kalamazoo chapter SPEBSQSA Mall City Chorus
It's great to be a barbershopper!!!