[nfbcs] Communicating with Braille Displays

[Mike Jolls]

I'm considering purchasing a Braille Display ... one that allows Perkins input and probably 40 cell display.  Anybody have any preferences on which vendor has the best display?  I'm thinking about a Freedom 40 blue.  Also, I'm thinking about this one since it pairs with IOS devices,  and also because I can use it on a PC with Jaws.
 
One other thing I'd like to experiment with is writing some applications for the PC that could interface with the display.  Send data to, and read commands from, the Perkins keys on the display.  I'd like to know if anybody knows of good documentation on how to do this.  I'm guessing you'd have to write C++ (or similar language) applications that talk to the display driver that allows sending data to the display or reading the keys off the device.  I've looked at the driver documentation on Freedom's FSDN, but I don't see any commands in the driver to read keystrokes sent from the Perkins keys on the display.  I know there has to be a way, but in my mind, this capability is going to be provided through the driver software.  So if their driver is really that lacking, I may want to avoid a Freedom device.  The driver documentation only appears to tell how to send data to the display.
 
I'm also asking about different vendor displays since Freedom's information seems incomplete.  Perhaps another vendor gives better documentation and better drivers.  If anybody can provide some information or point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.
 
Thanks