With apologies for taking this off topic for this forum, but I don't seem to be able to mail you directly from here. It looks as though Emacspeak may be designed for specific applications. A more general Linux screen reader seems to be Speakup from: http://www.linux-speakup.org/speakup.html
although I have know idea how well it would work; it refers to the distributions of Linux under which it will run, but I don't know if this is in line with the version of the OS which you use.

I take Bill's point about learning a whole computer system for the sake of getting into this, but I'm used to learning curves for the sake of access, and if it got me stability and upgradability, I'd go for it. Right now, ignorance is my main problem, but I like the sound of those "programmable buttons".

Thanks to all for your help


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Reg
Skype name regwebb