Ottawa Canada Dear Terri Pannet, Terry Powers and list:
There is Computer Braille and then there is Computer Braille. I'll explain: The 4-5-6 sign (underscore on a QT keyboard) to indicate the following letter is capitalized is used in: The Provisional Computer Braille Code as published by BANA, the Braille Authority Of North America. However the one-for-one correspondence Braille Code as used on the BrailleNote and many other Braille devices is commonly called Computer Braille, but is properly known as: T-Braille. The T stands for: Triformations, the predecessor company to Enabling Technologies. It has a one-for-one correspondence of Braille signs to computer text and is not the same as the Provisional Computer Braille Code by BANA. In six-dot mode, T-Braille cannot distinguish between capital and lowercase letters! To get around this limitation, the Versa Braille used shaking dots to denote a capital letter when in "Computer Braille" mode, actually T-Braille mode, and other firms went to eight-dot Braille, using dot 7, directly below dot 3 as the capital indicator. I think dot 8 is generally used to denote a control character and both dots 7 and 8 being present generally indicate the position of the cursor. Provisional Braille Code by BANA would use the 4-5-6 sign to denote a single capitalized letter, but if a whole word or passage is capitalized, you would use the caps-lock sign which is the 4-5-6 sign followed by another sign, I forget which. There is also a caps unlock sign and I forget what it is as it doesn't seem to be used that much. Triformations got their name on the one-for-one correspondence with text Braille Computer Code because they were pretty much the first firm to sell a Braille embosser, the LED-1, which was later replaced by the LED 120, with a nominal embossing speed of 120 characters per second. While Humanware provides a Braille table for T-Braille, it should be noted that in Europe and the United Kingdom, they often use BAUK Computer Braille, a code devised by: The Braille Authority Of The United Kingdom. It differs from T-Braille in several ways, the most noticeable being it uses dot-6 and the letter representing a digit to represent numbers instead of using lower letters as in T-Braille and Nemeth Math and Scientific Notation! I have used both computer Braille codes and you quickly get the hang of them when you encounter them. On the BrailleNote or VoiceNote, you write a capital letter by preceding it with a space plus the letter U on a BT keyboard when in six-dot mode or by pressing the shift key and the desired letter on a QT keyboard. Of course you can always enter the character in eight-dot mode on a BT keyboard. So the answer you reproduced below is only partially correct! Brian Brian K. Lingard email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ve3yiab2ji15 tel: +1 (613) 247-0665 New York NY Tel +1 (646) 797-2862 FAX +1 (613) 247-9998 Terry Powers wrote: Someone asked how to capitalize in computer braille. I came across this while cleaning up. Terry Powers -----Original Message----- From: Terri Pannett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Richard, I've been reading a web braille book which has symbols in it so people reading 6-dot computer braille can distinguish between a capital computer braille a and a small computer braille a. The book used a symbol called "capitalization indicator" followed by the letter to be capitalized. The "capitalization indicator" was dots 4,5,6. I thought that was interesting because, like you, I believed everything in computer braille had to correspond one on one. But the book had other two-cell signs, too: dots 4,5,6 3,4,6 is the begin computer braille indicator and dots 4,5,6 1,5,6 is the end computer braille indicator 4,5,6 3,4 is the end emphasis indicator and 4,5,6 1,6 is beginning emphasis indicator. Can anyone explain these differences to me? I think it's a good thing these signs exist, because there are many times when I can't write 8-dot braille. My BN QT will only write 6 dot braille and my brailler and slates won't do it either. Terri Pannett, Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA. Army MARS call sign AAT9PX, California No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.487 / Virus Database: 269.13.25/1018 - Release Date: 19/09/2007 3:59 PM ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
