Some server motherboards include serial UART/I<sup>2</sup>C ports which can be used to manage a BIOS via serial.
If this is possible, would it be able to attach to a braille display via an intermediary like a Rockchip/Pi SBC or Arduino compatible chip using [BRLTTY](https://brltty.app) and serial input from the motherboard?
Maybe not as it [appears to require](https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/rhl-biosserial.html) a full Unicode terminal, which I have the suspicion that BRLTTY will not be able to automatically filter out the formatting characters.
I found one paper referencing the (in)accessibility of BIOS, specifically UEFI BIOS from Brazil.
I have downloaded the paper and uploaded it here for reference.
[PDF of "UEFI BIOS Accessibility for the Visually Impaired"](/assets/pdf/bios-accessibility.pdf).
After emailing the authors of the paper, I found out that one of them, Rafael Machado, was able to get a song playing in UEFI as a part of his masters.
Here is a link to the Github [Msc UEFI PreOS Accessibility](https://github.com/RafaelRMachado/Msc_UefiHda_PreOs_Accessibility);
he has links to YouTube videos where he is shown playing a song on an ASUS laptop with PCIe connected speakers: [Song Playing in UEFI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2De9dI9WbwM)
I have downloaded and played around with his Github project but to no avail.
Either I am not setting it up correctly, or I do not have the proper sound setup, but in any case no sound plays from either my laptop or desktop.
Use selenium to allow a cross-engine compatible terminal-browser with JS support. Yes, sure, it has all the bloat of the modern web as it uses the full code of Chrome/Firefox/Webkit---but at least it can be used in the terminal.
Guaranteed to be accessible.
I'm thinking of similar key commands to Orca/NVDA but output is send to the terminal. Unsure of how to handle aria-live regions, but perhaps a queue could be used to print text. Unsure how to calculate delay as the user may be using a screen reader at different speeds and/or a braille display.
Change backend on-the-fly with a page reload. So if a website doesn't work with Webkit, load it in Firefox with a key command.
## 3. 3d printing of Google Maps/OpenStreetMaps data for the visually impaired.
A larger project, to be sure, but one I think could be of interest.
Imagine being able to download some data from Google or OpenStrretMaps,
then put it into a program and have it generate a 3d map which can be printed.
Unsure what to do, as the braille overlay on top of the streets and important buildings, etc. needs to be of a uniform size (braille cannot be scaled) but the buildings, streets, and parks do need to be scaled in size.
I think for beginning, forget the braille entirely and simply product a map.
This can be done in the STL file format or some intermediary if that is easier.
Roads will have a slight border on the side,
parks will have a diamond texture,
buildings will have slight rectangular borders (slightly wider than the roads),
paths will be a thin line, and the label for the path will need to extend the thin line into a (rounded) rectangle with text on it.
Start with roads.
Get a road, get it to generate the correct shape.
Then add a border around the side.
Then, add 4 more roads and figure out how to intersect them.
If it can be done on a display, it can be done in a file.
