World Braille Day

  The development of devices which would make it possible to store braille print digitally on compact cassettes in order to be recalled for reading, was already one of the topics on the technical conference in London in April, 19. The advantage of this procedure lies mainly in the possibility to have a large quantity of text on a single cassette. Some of those devices are already in the stage of practical test, so, for instance, the "Digi-Cassette" in France and the "Braillocord (BRS.76)" which was designed by the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut in Berlin and developed by the AID. There is, further on, the "Braillex", designed by Professor Boldt (Dortmund) which is said to come out in a series for testing in the course of this year. Supplied with a fast automatic station-scanner it is specially suited for the storage of dictionaries and files. I had the opportunity to test the BRS.76 thoroughly. Though its stage of development is remarkable there will be, no doubt...

  The story so far: Louis Braille created a new dot alphabet for his blind classmates. When Louis returned from the Exhibition of Industry in Paris , he was sad that his invention wouldn’t be available to other blind people. In the last few years he had occasionally felt tired. He also sometimes had a bad cough and fever. He grew sicker. His doctor told him he had consumption, or what we today call tuberculosis. At that time the only remedy for this disease was fresh air and rest. Louis taught less and spent time outside. He continued to improve the dot alphabet. He added the letter “w” so that his code could be used to write English. And he worked on creating math textbooks for blind students. A new director came to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth and wouldn’t allow the students to continue using Louis’ new alphabet. The director was afraid that the students would become too independent and would no longer need the teachers who could see. Louis was very disappointed. His ...

  A Hewlett-Packard desktop computer has been pro grammed to output speech with a 64 word vocabulary. The vocabulary consists of the numerals, the alphabet and special symbols for punctuation and upper and lower case letters.  This speech output system has been incorporated into three devices:  (i) a word processing system which permits inputting, editing, printing and formatting. The speech, normally operating only during proofing and correcting, is acti vated whenever the cursor is positioned over a character. The system prices start at $14,000.  (ii) an automatic data entry system which vocally prompts the blind operator to enter data on a typewriter keyboard. Data entered can be proofed and corrected by speech output which is activated by cursor keys on the keyboard. The system can be programmed to prompt the operator for data to fill out almost any form. The system starts at $14,000.  (iii) a talking computer terminal can communicate with virtually any c...