moore@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Doug Moore) (01/29/88)
I finally brought my parents into the computer age. My dad has taken to it fine, but my mom can't see well enough to use it. I'm looking for suggestions on how to make the Mac useful for her too. I know of two software possibilities. I have a copy of the "Magnify" DA by Scott Gillespie of Reed College, which provides a fixed size, movable window which displays a 3x (I think) magnification of a circular area. You click in the window, the cursor becomes a circle, and as you drag the circle around, the part of the screen covered by the circle is magnified. Its shortcomings are its awkward shape and inflexibility, but it's the best I have right now. I also have a copy of the "Stepping out" demo. I don't know if the complete version has the flexibility I want or not. The demo only allows the screen to be divided into left and right halves, with 4x magnification on the right half. At the very least, an option to allow division into top and bottom halves instead would make text editing easier, I think. Has anyone come up with a good solution for this problem? I like a DA solution, because the ability to move quickly from blind user's mode to normal mode is important. If you have suggestions, please mail them to me. If I get any interesting responses, I will summarize to the net in a couple of weeks. Doug Moore moore@svax.cs.cornell.edu
bayes@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Scott Bayes) (01/30/88)
>I finally brought my parents into the computer age. My dad has taken to it >fine, but my mom can't see well enough to use it. I'm looking for suggestions >on how to make the Mac useful for her too. ... > >Has anyone come up with a good solution for this problem? I like a DA solution, >because the ability to move quickly from blind user's mode to normal mode is >important. If you have suggestions, please mail them to me. If I get any >interesting responses, I will summarize to the net in a couple of weeks. > >Doug Moore >moore@svax.cs.cornell.edu MacUser reviewed some software just recently (Feb issue) that may meet your needs. It wasn't a large article, so look in the TOC, rather than just leafing through. Scott Bayes bayes@hpfclw
sharo@topaz.rutgers.edu (Rob Sharo) (02/10/88)
Also from MacUser: I was a recent subscriber under a special deal: Subscribe now and receive their Programs & Utilities Disk #1. It contains five programs (4 of them Shareware) and one of these includes a program to make it easier to read the Macintosh. The manual says the programs require 512K so I haven't tried it yet since I own a 128K (to be upgraded in the next 3 months, I hope). I don't know if you can get this disk from anywhere else, but it may be worth looking into. Rob Sharo sharo@topaz.rutgers.edu