David.Andrews@f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org (David Andrews) (05/04/91)
Index Number: 15374
[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]
I recently saw a new refreshable braille display that is
being shown around. It is called the "New Ability Brailler" and
is from England. It is somewhat different in that it brailles on
a continuous loop of tape. The display is 43 cells wide. The
unit uses 8 dot braille. The tape is actually pre-punched, with
all dots for all cells going down, away from your finger. To
make braille, the machine pushes up the proper dots. It works a
line at a time. Each line takes about 1.7 seconds, and the
machine is a little noisy.
The quality of the braille is quite readable.
The machine I saw had some software problems, that is the
resident software in the PC, and the display weren't agreeing on
line lengths.
The comapny is looking for someone to make an initial order of at
least 500, and market it, so they can pay for their tooling
costs. This is an unrealistic expectation, and they are starting
to realize that.
Depending on volume, they say their costs would be between $1500
and $2500 per unit. The machine does have some unresolved
problems, and some limitations, speed and noise primarily.
I think at around $1000 people might buy it as a relatively
inexpensive braille supplement, but at $2000 or $3000, it is to
much to be worth it.
It does work, kind of, and it could work better. Whether or not
it could work well, for an affordable price, remains to be seen.
... David Andrews
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