On Mon, 24 Jul 2000 13:32:18 +0000, Bastiaan Edelman wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jul 2000 01:26:42 -0400 (EDT), Karen Lewellen wrote:
>> wait a moment,
>> if this is a dos bassed program,
>> why mustyou "click," anything?
>> can nothing be done without a mouse?
>> also, the program i use for speech
>> will prevent an problems with a pringer.
>> capturing whatever characters come
>> through and speaking them without even sending thme on.
>> karenl
> Hi Karen and Clarence,
> indeed this is a DOS-program and instead of clicking you can use the tab
> and arrow keys to move and activate the cursor on the screen.
> But you have to know, to see, where the cursor is.
> This morning I downloaded 52 e-mails and they are shown on a list.
> To read one, or as in your case to get them to the printer port you
> first have to select one.
> To select one you first must place the cursor on the wanted item before
> you can click, either by mouse or by the keyboard.
Hello Karen, Bastiaan, and Clarence:
This is not a problem for Karen, Bastiaan. She can do exactly that. Her
screen reader can read the list of messages if she has an ascii type mail
reader and she can use the arrow keys to move the cursor up and down to
select the message she wants to read. I know she can do that because I
know that she can use Net-Tamer, and that is the way the mail-reader
facility works with Net-Tamer. The problem she would have with Arachne is
that Arachne does not have an ascii type mail reader.
It is my opinion that her screen reader would be unable to cope with
ikons and buttons presented in a graphics display. For that reason
I think she would have a problem doing mail with Arachne, unless she
wanted to work with it within the DOS shell. She could use an ascii
text editor to compose her messages and replies. Also she could use
Telnet to send and to download mail because Telnet has an ascii interface.
I don't think her screen reader would be able to deal with the graphics
buttons displayed in Arachne where you have to click on "reply", "forward"
"move", and "trash". Nor could her screen reader read the message
listings as displayed in HTML. She would not me able to see the
graphics ikons for "get mail", or "compose message", etc. Her screen
reader cannot read graphic ikons and buttons. When working from a
command-line interface, or when working from some kind of DOS program
offering an ascii type interface such as Net-Tamer she seems to have no
problems.
It would be theoretically possible for her to use some special equipment
that would enable her to click on ikons and graphics buttons. She could
use a keypad-cursor and a menu-pad to substitute for a mouse. The keypad
cursor has a magnetic pickup coil that knows where it is on the menu-pad.
The menu-pad has an internal magnetic grid that is registered to certain
screen display coordinates. The menu-pad could of course have its
selections printed in braille instead of the characters that sighted persons
use. It would require the assistance of a sighted person to set up and
register the keypad cursor and menu-pad to the display coordinates. Once
everything is setup, and with the aid of a speech synthesizer you could
sucessfully run such a system even with your eyes closed.
I have several years of working experience with keypad cursors and
menu-pads. I used this kind of technology when I used to work in digital
mapping for the United States Geological Survey. It never ocurred to me
at the time that this kind of technology could find some great usefulness
among visually-impared computer operators. Doubtless the idea surely has
already ocurred to the nerd community, and there probably has already
been some highly sophisticated developments along such lines.
All the best,
Sam Heywood
-- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client
-- Arachne V1.65, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://home.arachne.cz
