pat@pyuxqq.UUCP (Pat M. Iurilli) (03/28/85)
There are now several new products available to aid the blind or visually
impaired. A company in Boston, MA is leading the way in producing
a variety of them.
This company started by designing a ground up talking and large printing
computer terminal and then adding an external dual floppy disk micro running
cp/m to make it intelligent. they subsequently decided to get mostly out of
the hardware business (of course how can you compete by selling products
by the 10 when competitors sell by the 100,000?) and use an off the shelf
hardware product that was versatile enough for their purposes. The IBM PC
was chosen as their base machine and they decided to write the software to
make it perform the various functions necessary.
They first came out with a software package called 'The LENS' which magnifies
the print on a normal display monitor. it needs both the monochrome and
color graphics boards to operate. it basically copies what is being sent
to the monochrome board and using graphics, enlarges it to a user specified
size. It sells for $500. So for the price of these 2 boards and the software
(total <$1000.00) you can make a pc produce large print. it magnifies a
portion of the screen or window and allows movement of this window to scan
the whole screen. the arrow keys are used for this movement. they've also
used the function keys for their local functions so it is very easy to use.
It can also do things like track or not track the cursor so input can always
be viewed. it also works with most application software such as pmate,
lotus123, dbase ii & iii, etc. It can handle either screen or line oriented
software. In my opinion it is a great package.
Next they developed a software package which has just recently been released
called 'PC Voice" which needs a speech card produced by artic technologies
costing <$200.00, while their software costs $500.00. This board uses the
ssi 263a (nec sc02) speech chip which is a phenominal chip with tremendous
to produce synthetic speech. it is the best speech i've
heard yet. It's much better than any votrax synthesizers, even their vsb
board which cost nearly $1000.00. It allows totally blind users to use the
pc without restriction, including application software as well.
Either of these software packages, coupled with a terminal emulator (of chich
there are many in the public domain), now allows a visually impaired
individual to work much more easily and cheaply than ever before.
This company is also soon to come out with a grade 2 braille translator that
will, in conjunction with a braille printer, print out braille copy. They
are also developing a braille embosser to do this printiing as well.
So this company seems to have several products where something would be right
for everyone. This company has not narrowly restricted their software to
the handicapped audience only, however. Their software has a wide spectrum
These products are much better than the products made by Visualtek of
Palo Alto CA, whose large print computer and add-on large print adapter for
the IBM PC is expensive junk in my opinion. They are a step or two ahead of
every other similar product on the market today.
of applications, in advertising, electronic blackboards, security, etc.
For further information contact:
Peter Duran
Arts Computer Products
125 Tremont St.
Boston, MA
(617) 482-8248
or me. i've used most of these products and so am qualified to give advice
on the matter. By the way this information is released with the permission
of this company.
Pat Iurilli Bell Communications Research Piscataway, NJ
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