collins@iastate.edu (Collins Alvin Gene) (12/29/90)
Index Number: 12587 In article <16444@bunker.UUCP> Christophe.Delaunay@irisa.fr (Christophe Delaunay) writes: >Index Number: 12519 > >Hi netters! > >Can any kind soul give me the address of Duxburry, the company that >makes a software called "outspoken" or may anyone give me their >experience with this software or other screen readers for Macintosh >computers? Is outspoken designed for text screens only or does it allow >the totally blind person I am to draw small graphics like slides? > Christophe, the name of the company that developed and markets outspoken for the MACINTOSH is Berkley Systems Inc. There address and phone number are included below. I use outspoken and have found it to be a very easy to use program. Outspoken is not capable of allowing a blind person to draw graphics. I am not aware of any currently available software that a blind person could use to draw graphics. What outspoken does give a blind user of a macintosh is the ability to locate and identify graphical symbols and icons on the screen. The program has a dictionary facility that allows the user to enter a string of text which should be spoken when a graphical symbol or icon is encountered on the screen. There is also a word dictionary which allows the use to "fix" mispronounced words. The one complaint I have about outspoken is that there is no way to "lock" the mouse pointer and the cursor of an application together. This means that if you are using an editor on a remote computer through a comunications program, you will have a very difficult time locating the cursor in your text. On the whole, I would be willing to recomend outspoken to anyone who needs speech output on a MAC. Here is Berkley Systems' address and phone number: Berkeley Systems, Inc. 1700 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 (415) 540-5535 I hope this helps. Gene Collins (collins@iastate.edu) Microcomputer Consultant Room 191 Durham Center for Computing and Telecommunications Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 50011 (515) 294-0015 Disclaimor: The above thoughts and opinions are mine and do not reflect the views of Iowa State University.