I think in a general sense we've come a long way in 20 years.
Twenty years ago, didn't have a computer at all. My brother had one
of those old Tandy machines. Remember those? And most people I knew
who were sighted had simmular products in their homes, if they even
had a computer. We also had an old T I 94 I think it was with the
plug in synthesiser, and the cassetplayer to store the programs on.
Could find the program by counting them as they bliped through. The
computer would speak back what you typed in one of the programs,
which could be intertaining, but that's about it. Although that
machine goes back to about 24 or 25 years ago.
Now have two machines here in my house. An old Windows box which
still can do what we need, and the Apple.
Now in the need for accessibility, I think we'll always be doing
that, because of our small numbers in the marketplace overall. But
were you burning your own music cds in 1986? Oh that's right, we
didn't have a cd player in our house then. Still used tape.
I was aware of the concept of the Internet back then, but for me it
was just a concept and that was it. Well, will send this now over
it. A lot faster than taping a letter to another blind person, or
having him or her suffer through my braille. Or me suffer with the
typwriter.Remember those?
Braille accessibility? Now verses then? Not to much different.
Can't afford the devices to read it so will listen via text. It
would be nice of course, but will obviously have to do without it for
now, and probably will be ok.
Also 1986, try sticking your vhs tape into the computer and watching
a movie. Can at least in general listen to a movie here on the
computer now if I wish.
Have to admite though I like the time travel discussion though. In
general there have been a lot of good things happen for us in 20 years.
On Mar 16, 2006, at 5:26 PM, Jacob Schmude wrote:
Hi
What exactly do you mean, where have we gone? Are you talking in
terms of braille translators or in general? If in general, I have
to say the use of a computer has come one hell of a long way from
that point in time for us blind users. BrailleEdit was before my
time, but I remember BeX and the Apple II quite well--both the good
and the bad.
First off, we can now access the majority of systems sighted people
do, and have been able to do so for quite a few years now. Granted,
not all mainstream systems are accessible but I'd go so far as to
say the majority are useable in one way or another. How about the
use of mainstream wordprocessors, rather than specialized programs,
or other mainstream programs? How about the majority of
compatibility issues between blind and sighted users' documents
being eliminated because of that? The access to multiple operating
systems--OS X, Windows, and Linux among them? The ability for us to
use a GUI? I'd say computer use for us has come a very long way
from that time. I remember how frustrating it was on the Apple II,
trying to make an application work with Textalker and the Echo II
when it wanted to use the same memory location as Textalker did,
resulting in an application modification--which was, in most cases,
illegal without express permission. I find what we have now to be
much better. Perfect? Of course not, and it probably will never be.
Nor are computers perfect for those who are sighted. But to say or
imply that we've come nowhere from the days of the Apple II is, in
my opinion, pure nonsense.
Just my $0.02
On Mar 16, 2006, at 2:44 PM, BlindTech of BlindTechs.Net wrote:
I am currently going over the old raised dot computing news
letters and wondering that one thing
Where have we gone iin twnety years as blind people and computers??
This news letter specifically wrote about a translator and editor
of braille and word processing on the apple 2. called braille edit.
and I'll be damned and say it sounds lie what we talk about today.
so then I ask,
where have we really gone in twenty years. except change hardware,
and os.
you can read for yourself at
http://personalpages.tds.net/~ti51/rdcnews.htm
Gabe Vega
BlindTech of BlindTechs.Net
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
website: http://blindtechs.net
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