On The Overlooked World Of 'Accessible Gaming' 21
Thanks to TotalGames for reprinting a GamesTM piece discussing hardware and software that opens up videogaming to blind, deaf or physically impaired people. The piece notes "an increasing number of games created for the accessible market, and 'high-street' games [that] can be adapted to meet individual needs", although programmer Nick Adamson comments: "Currently the accessible games market is purely based on the PC... as for game consoles, they are pointless to blind gamers."
Re:Nethack has support for blind users (Score:4, Informative)
Blind users tend to use one of two devices, either a screen reader (which will read the contents of the screen out loud and assist with navigation), or an RBD (Refreshable Braille Display), depending on personal preference.
The most popular screen reader is called JAWS, by the company Freedom Scientific. [freedomscientific.com]There is a Linux screen reader, which is open source, known as EmacSpeak [cornell.edu]
Here's a company that makes good Refreshable Braille Displays, for those who are interested. [alvabraille.com]
Interestingly enough, Freedom Scientific, and others also make Audio-based and RBD-based PDA's.
Since Nethack is text-based, it's easy to make this game work with Assistive Technology (which is what all of these different technologies are known as), as text is extremely easy to present to someone in alternative formats (spoken, Brailled, enlarged, etc.). Highly visual games, however, require an extra level of accessibility.
Just a little FYI.