designing a screen reader

[saqib saqib-shaikh freeserve co uk]

For a project I am doing, I have decided to attempt to write a 
console screen reader for linux/unix. However, while I know c++ I 
do not know many of the low level linux calls, such as how to get 
the contents of the screen. In msdos you could do this using 
memcpy because you could read from the screen memory, but due 
to security and suchlike I don't think an equivalent is possible 
under unix/linux. If anyone has any help to offer, please contact me 
privately at saqib saqib-shaikh freeserve co uk 
thanks, saqib