Re: braille output hardware (jf)(long post)

[Brent Harding <bharding@doorpi.net>]

Well, the brief time I've used a braille lite 40 at school, it's mechanism
of scrolling is pretty good. While reading with one finger, when you get to
the end you just push the right button on the navigation bar and move the
other finger to the beginning. Normally, I'd read with my right finger and
keep the left on the bar, and press it when I get to the end of the line.
I'm not sure that automatic scrolling would be that good, if you want to
begin towards the end of the line, and keep that line displayed.
At 08:06 AM 3/9/02 -0500, you wrote:
>[quoted lines by emc.er on March 9, 2002, at 05:11]
>
>Here are answers to some of your questions.
>
>>1. Is a keyboard with scrolling braille 'home' keys available anywhere
>>today?
>
>Not that I'm aware of.
>
>>2. Will speech output displace the braille tty completely?
>
>No. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Deaf-blind people cannot use
>speech. Braille provides random access whereas speech provides sequential
>access.
>
>>2a. Is braille reading speed faster than listening to audio?
>
>Yes for some, and no for some. The one big advantage of braille insofar as
>speed is concerned is the ability to jump to any place on the screen at will.
>
>>3. Do all braille tty's cost many many thousands of dollars?
>
>Yes (almost). There's an eight-cell display made by Handy Tech Elektronik
>(Germany), brand-named the Bookworm, which isn't too expensive. There's
also a
>prototype display made by NIST (National Institute for Standards in
>Technology), a division of the US government, which, if manufactured,
should be
>fairly cheap; you can check it out at:
>
>    http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/isis/projects/brailleproject.html
>
>>3a. If they were one tenth the cost would they become more prolific?
>
>Yes, if sufficiently functional.
>
>>5b.  Is it easier or necessary to use 2 or more fingers to read???
>
>Braille can be read with one finger, but it's more reliably read with two.
Each
>can spare the other during moments of fatigue, the extra redundancy increases
>error correction, and no time is wasted when ending one line and starting the
>next.
>
>>6. Do the graphic output grids work? There is a 64 by 64? grid for sale.
>
>They're useful when non-text is encountered, but braille is much easier to
read
>than print. A graphic display would be most useful if it were able to
>automatically (with an override) switch to braille when on text.
>
>>7. Is there any braille tty that even scrolls the characters past your
>>fingers?
>
>See above regarding the NIST prototype. It uses a rotating wheel with several
>braille cells around its perimeter. The top half (roughly) is exposed for
>reading, and there's a single pin-repositioning mechanism at the bottom.
>
>-- 
>Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the
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>
>
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