Posts by pixelate@tweesecake.social
(DIR) Post #AhsNcd23pMIbgER3C4 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-05-02T20:21:46Z
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Editted to fix link. Please boost for reach if this kind of stuff interests you. Will post more on this later.Once upon a time, there was a cool emulator frontend called Retroarch. This emulator wasn't accessible until I and a few other gamers went to them and asked about adding accessibility. An amazing person known as BarryR made it happen. Now, if you turn on accessibility mode in settings, or pass the "--accessibility" (or something like that) flag on the command line, you get spoken menus, including the emulator's pause menu, good for saving states and such. Then, using PIL and other image processing Python utilities, running a server and hooking into Retroarch, the script allowed players to move around the map, battle, talk to NPC's, ETC. The only problem was, no one wanted to test it. The blind gaming community pretty much spoke, saying that we want new games. We want cool new, easy accessibility. So that's what we have no, follow the beacon or get sighted help in the case of diablo and such. It's sad, but meh. It's what we wanted I guess. No Zelda for us. So, this is about as far as he got:To expand on what devinprater was saying: I am working on an accessibility pack/service for Final Fantasy 1 for the NES (this was what was shown in the latest RetroArch update). The idea is similar to how Pokemon Crystal access works, but it's using the RetroArch AI Service interface to do so.Right now, the FF1 access service is mostly done, but I need more testers to try it out and give me feedback on how it's working. Right now, you can get up to the point where you get the ship, but there's no code to deal with how the ship moves, so that still needs to be done. Likewise with the airship later on.The service works the latest version of RetroArch, on linux and mac, but not windows. This is due to how nvda reads out the text and until the next major update to nvda (which will have a feature to fix this), it'll have to wait. If you have those, I (or maybe devinprater) can help you set it up on mac/linux to test out. The package itself is available at: (new link cause old one broke yesterday): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ggffl769fx6igz15zco6u/ff1_package5b.zip?rlkey=fnahnj272fd5jfs8dvkp7541f&dl=1#accessibility #finalFantasy #RetroArch #blind #emulator #emulation #Python #ai #ML #MachineLearning
(DIR) Post #AhsNceg9hlxumsCaKO by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-05-02T21:11:53Z
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So, I get that old games are, well, old. I get that new games are really cool. And I know, I'm the biggest hypocrit of them all because I can't code and should be spending 24/7 learning to code so I can ***be the change I want to see in the world*** and all that FossShit. And honestly, I don't know how hard it was to make that project, I really don't. But if that can be done, I kinda have the feeling that modders that make Super Mario hacked ROMs, or decompile Super Mario 64, maybe could spend a bit of time on accessibility of these old games.And here we come to a sad truth. Just because a community is small, does *not* mean accessibility will be prioritized. Just because a game studeo is huge, like Netherrealm Studeos, doesn't mean accessibility will be forgotten, either. I've gone to several different emulation communities. I asked for audio cues to be added into PPSSPP, and that's why they're in there now. Since the GUI can't be made accessible, I can still navigate it on mobile with a controller. I'm currently trying to get Provinence and Ignited made more accessible. I've kinda given up on Delta because that team has all the hype so is less likely to listen, at least that's kinda how I feel.But seriously though, there aren't many activists among us. And there's just not much the few of us can do. But my dream, and I know how pathetic dreams are in this age of everyone looking down on everyone else, is that a blind person can enjoy and preserve in our own culture, what sighted people have been able to access for the last 20 years or so. Thousands of games, just sitting there ready to play. And I mean, this was like 4 years ago, with less blind programmers out there, less resources for ROM hacking and emulator scripting, and less devs. Now that emulation is on iOS, I seriously hope that this improves. I mean, imagine a blind person that uses their iPhone as their only computing device, being able to just download an emulator, already having scripts pre-installed and ready for a ROM, being able to just plop in Chrono Trigger and playing it like anyone else. That's my dream. Stupid, yes. But equal access has probably always seemed stupid before it's a thing.
(DIR) Post #AhsNcgXim6PIZIGsSW by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-05-06T00:42:57Z
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Should be accessible on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
(DIR) Post #AhsNcgYQjSySbUbRZ2 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-05-02T21:18:00Z
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And honestly, I wouldn't even start with the huge projects, like Zelda. I'd start with Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, all that. Make the menus talk, read tutorials, move lists, pause screens, all that. I mean, I don't know how easy that would be, since their graphics are going to be different than Mario or Final Fantasy, but surely if we can do cheat codes that mess with memory ingame, we should be able to track the cursor in menus.
(DIR) Post #AicTQ2dNYSC5wFgm6i by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-06-05T13:31:36Z
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Please boost for reach: There's an open issue on Github about adding scripting support to Retroarch. This would enable scripts like the Pokemon Access mod to be ran on Retroarch, hopefully allowing blind people to actually play the game while mobile. I tried it out and am already making a team in Pokemon Emerald, and in the woods in the first few areas of the game! If anyone is good with adding Lua to things, or if anyone is good at modding games and wants to enhance the Pokemon Access scripts, I'd really appreciate you looking into this.Github issue: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/6454Pokemon Access: https://github.com/nuive/pokemon-access#Pokemon #accessibility #gaming #blind #emulation #emulators #Retroarch #retro #BlindGaming
(DIR) Post #AiePQBzckQq7SopXFI by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-06-05T23:15:43Z
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Oooo lookie, shortcuts made specifically to describe screenshots or photos with GPT4o.https://shortcutjar.com/describe/documentation/
(DIR) Post #Aj9oIuhyc4T0VhFsHo by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-06-21T16:01:07Z
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@tess @aral Something like: We just made a huge building for your use! It's just for *you*! It's *your* building!Person walks up to the building, there are no doors, no windows, just walls all around. Person can't get in.They go to the building maker, but are told "Well, that's okay, just build doors into the building. Not too hard, right?
(DIR) Post #AjAGa4mUSdYVxPFg3c by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-06-21T20:14:32Z
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@tess @aral Also, I've been telling people for the past four or so years I've been around Mastodon. I wrote a blog post [1] about it like two or so years ago. And for the last ten years, I've always stuck to using the Mate desktop or spin or whatever, because I knew Gnome wasn't very accessible. So I've always used X11, and broke my audio a few weeks ago on my Fedora 40 system trying to switch back from Pipewire to Pulseaudio, where Emacspeak is more responsive. I've been telling people that Microsoft is going to do something so crazy that people will switch to Linux, if not on mass, then at least more than usual. And Recall was it. And even if they don't launch it this year, we all know they eventually will. So yeah, the time to really pile on to accessibility was years ago. But no. Last year, someone who has been using Linux for the last, oh I don't even know, 15 years ago? Longer than I have, talked about why they decided to not even deal with the GUI anymore, and now they use an iPhone. Lol they've probably gone all Apple by now. And what did the Gnome folks do? Well, a person who I think is even a member of the Gnome foundation basically called them a liar, and when I asked for solidarity from the comunity, I mostly got nothing. No one gives a damn, and that's very obvious to me. I posted on the System76's MatterMost a few years ago, asking about accessibility, and all I got before I left was something like "Well we'll worry about that when we start working on more of the GUI." No, planning needed to start at the beginning, not when, more likely, they're about to ship it. These days, I'm more like it would be nice, but it won't happen. That's why we blind people make the most of Windows and the iPhone, and try to minimize corporate abuse.[1] https://scribe.rip/@r.d.t.prater/linux-accessibility-an-unmaintained-mess-8fbf9decaf8a
(DIR) Post #AjM0uCTl1Y1YiYy6k4 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2024-06-26T01:43:31Z
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New Hampshire is actually New Hampster.
(DIR) Post #ArrTI0sQjWFli8wnS4 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-03-08T22:58:23Z
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@esoteric_programmer @fcktheworld587 I request fries too!
(DIR) Post #AtDq93HWX4qGxlsUds by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-04-18T17:22:54Z
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@sapphire @Natsura Aww, no Alt-text, so I'll just use my imagination and say it's a big fluffy cat laying on a mountain of blankets. :)
(DIR) Post #AvVOutromp1PXXZpVQ by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-06-26T00:12:10Z
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Tired: ✨AI✨Wired: ✨accessibility✨Inspired: ✨Kittens✨
(DIR) Post #AvZ10ffQsCEsyCqHRI by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-06-27T10:50:40Z
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Could be really nice for simple video descriptions, if Google like, decides to use it.The Rundown: Google launched the full version of Gemma 3n, its new family of open AI models (2B and 4B options) designed to bring powerful multimodal capabilities to mobile and consumer edge devices. The details:• The new models natively understand images, audio, video, and text, while being efficient enough to run on hardware with as little as 2GB of RAM.• Built-in vision capabilities analyze video at 60 fps on Pixel phones, enabling real-time object recognition and scene understanding.• Gemma’s audio features translate across 35 languages and convert speech to text for accessibility applications and voice assistants.• Gemma’s larger E4B version becomes the first model under 10B parameters to surpass a 1300 score on the competitive LMArena benchmark.#AI #Gemma #google
(DIR) Post #AvaUCKFlPJiRrLhnH6 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-06-28T07:08:08Z
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Lol someone described JAWS for Windows ($1000+ screen reader) as legacy software, and yep that's what I'm gonna call it from now on.
(DIR) Post #AvkDNONO9MzbxNuy00 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-07-03T03:34:22Z
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You tap commands into the computer, keeping an eye on the view screen as you do. Your ship begins to accelerate faster and faster the hum of the engines growing louder. As your speed increases a portal into darkness appears, light fraying its edges. You pass the threshold into black, you are now in Null Space and will arrive at your first waypoint of many at any moment. Travelling at sublight speeds often involves momentarily travelling at FTL speeds to skip past entire regions.
(DIR) Post #AwmswOLDGs8W9r4H2m by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-08-01T19:47:21Z
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@cwebber The Tardis is a ship.
(DIR) Post #AxABIgGzY47LxDwwe8 by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-08-14T12:51:29Z
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For anyone who missed it: new blog post! Beyond Parity: The Case for True Accessibility Affordanceshttps://devinprater.micro.blog/2025/08/13/beyond-parity-the-case-for.html#accessibility #blog #blind #UX
(DIR) Post #AzwKHooffEFdiG6o6q by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-11-05T14:22:43Z
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@Thatmermaid_J yay you did it! I hope it was big and good.
(DIR) Post #AzwKHrIWRDJlPQ5fuq by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-11-05T14:24:11Z
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@Thatmermaid_J I love their burgers so much! That grilled taste!
(DIR) Post #B17J4OkDRYBUQakWvY by pixelate@tweesecake.social
2025-12-10T20:31:27Z
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If people can get Super Mario 64 running on a PS1, they can make more retro games, like Fire Emblem, Chrono Trigger (possibly), and Final Fantasy 7 accessible. That's not even including audio health bars for Mortal Kombat games, Dragon Ball Z, Soul Calibur, Tekken, and talking menus. Just saying.#gaming #games #accessibility #blind #modding #mod #mods #mario #nintendo #ps1 #playstation