Hey Francis. I still have one of those things but I don't use it any more. The Braille 'n Speak was still made by Freedom Scientific even after they took over Blazie and there were two models: the 640 KB model and the 2000 which had much more memory. Blazie also had the Type 'n speak which had a standard Toshiba laptop keyboard. We have several of those here and still use them. The Braille 'n Speak communicated with PC devices only when a certain type of software was present. As indicated above, it had a tiny memory when compared to even the least expensive laptop of today. It's biggest drawback was a proprietary connector which wasn't available anywhere else. For it's day, it was a fine piece of engineering with a standard Perkins style keyboard. You could do almost anything that you can with any other note taker but some of the command structures were a bit strange. The great thing was that it would work like a horse and never or at least rarely gave any trouble. PAKMATE: I hope I'm spelling that right. The Pakmate is a PDA Fran, (personal data assistant) and operates in the Windows environment using Pocket PC software. Unlike the Braille 'n Speak, this unit is capable of independent communication with the outside world. It is very well designed but there is one problem. A fully equipped Pakmate with all of the bells and whistles can cost you more than $4000. But it has some really unique and well designed features such as a built in refreshable Braille display, alarm clock, etc. etc. There are older models around and people are trying to unload them because the newer unit which came out about two years ago is much more capable than the first version. here are some of the negative elements. 1. It has no built in hard drive storage. 2. the RAM is relatively small when compared to the average laptop. 3. Freedom still uses proprietary connectors for much of the ancillary hard wear such as the WI-FI module. 4. it can only be serviced by Freedom Scientific. Francis, I went through this same internal discussion some time ago. I liked the Pakmate but I just couldn't manage the cost. If you like Braille, you can buy one of those USB Braille refreshable displays for about $1000. So, with the laptop, with a hard drive and the refreshable Braille display, you are still only paying about $2000. What's more, you get a much better and more capable piece of hardware. You are good with computers. I think that the Pakmate was designed for those who aren't comfortable with loading software or setting up Wi-Fi connections. The software Freedom has designed makes this thing incredible for someone who isn't that happy with playing with laptops. I hope this helps. JOHN AND LINDA JUSTICE WITH GUIDE DOGS JAKE AND ZACHARY PERSONAL E-MAIL: [email protected] For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
