Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
they have. however, thermoform paper is actually more expensive than standard paper stock. also, the thermo brailler (embosser) isn't cheap either. now, there are small form factor varieties that will work on 3x5 sized sheets. those run about $500 and are good for labeling prescription bottles, canned food, etc. not exactly useful for full sized sheets. their bigger cousins are still only used by a printing house (where the cost per sheet can be minimized). -eric On Jul 29, 2012, at 7:13 PM, Jack Woehr wrote: Eric Oyen wrote: 120 pound bond paper is rather hard on the print heads they use (and its the only stuff that will reasonably hold braille). Bond paper is traditional. Haven't they figured out a way to emboss thin sheets of polymer yet? -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
Eric Oyen wrote: they have. however, thermoform paper is actually more expensive than standard paper stock. Ah. Real-world economics scotches another clever techno solution :( -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
On 29 July 2012 02:48, Eric Oyen eric.o...@gmail.com wrote: the old steel perkiness brailler For the record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkins_Brailler
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
oh yeah. thermoform paper. the problem is that any heat tended to permanently deform it. it did produce some nice sharp braille. I am not material expert but i think it is possible to make thermoform paper that could be thermoformed multiple times. once when printing then ironing out. Even if it would be expensive - just use few meter strip running in a loop! no waste of material, elegant and USEFUL tty-style work under unix for blind person. at least 10 times more productive than screen readers. And no voice produced. the same printer - with an option to put cheaper single use paper - could be ued to make braille printouts. While unix style computing is far more efficient than any modern style, with blind person the difference is simply enormous.
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
commands. It should probably be an TERM=thumb then in an ideal world.. :)
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
such a device, possibly redesigned in modern way+electronic that would automatically control it and you get braille tty. On Sun, 29 Jul 2012, ropers wrote: On 29 July 2012 02:48, Eric Oyen eric.o...@gmail.com wrote: the old steel perkiness brailler For the record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkins_Brailler
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
ok. considering the design, I had originally thought it was from the late 19th century. my bad!. still, the thing was definitely over engineered. I can't honestly say the same thing about the newer, lighter plastic models. what I find disturbing is this: the newer plastic manual brailler is prone to break and wear out far sooner and it still costs more than the old steel framed all metal unit. it would be interesting to take one of those old steel units, make a couple of modifications (such as a serial interface and a 6 pin actuator as well as a carriage motor and turn one of these things into a low cost embosser. btw, an actual braille embosser (a monster braille printer) costs about $10K. now that I have strayed from the topic a bit, lets get back on it. converting man page format to ordinary text or even PDF or HTML seems easy enough (I had to use a command provided on here earlier to convert man doc(7) to a PDF and get it via sftp and read it locally. the PDF format was easy to deal with in my local PDF handler. I also have a braille I true type font installed here. so, if I chose to send it to another document for printing on a braille embosser, there wouldn't be any transcription errors. one additional benefit of the braille font, an ordinary person can't read it unless they know it by sight or have a translation table handy. thats cheap security on my mac, but its effective (except against a mac pro who knows exactly is in the menus that can set the font). now, I don't know if there is a braille virtual interface included with bsd.rd. if not, how hard would it be to compile one in? at least then, there would be another available method for someone like me to be able to install with little or no assistance (the first 2 being either a serial interface or a virtual frame grabber that has a built-in ssh server and network connection) -eric p. I hope I am not ranting too much. :) On Jul 29, 2012, at 9:50 AM, Wojciech Puchar wrote: such a device, possibly redesigned in modern way+electronic that would automatically control it and you get braille tty. On Sun, 29 Jul 2012, ropers wrote: On 29 July 2012 02:48, Eric Oyen eric.o...@gmail.com wrote: the old steel perkiness brailler For the record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkins_Brailler
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
I have a BrailleX ELBA-40 here (40 column braille display). unfortunately, it does not work because of a battery failure. Considering you have found out how cheap the electronics are I expect I cannot help for some undisclosed reason or that it's actually some sort of hard to find power failure. I wonder however if I could get that battery failure issue fixed for you? -- ___ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) ___
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
Eric Oyen wrote: btw, an actual braille embosser (a monster braille printer) costs about $10K. Hmm, sounds like an entrepreneurial opportunity making a cheaper unit. What's the input? Unicode? -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
that I am not sure of. these embossers are used at places like the American Printing House for the Blind. considering how much material is printed in braille monthly, their maintenance is a bit expensive. these are not your small printer for home use. they are industrial sized units that print more than 10,000 pages a month in braille and they need servicing on as often a basis. 120 pound bond paper is rather hard on the print heads they use (and its the only stuff that will reasonably hold braille). -eric On Jul 29, 2012, at 2:56 PM, Jack Woehr wrote: Eric Oyen wrote: btw, an actual braille embosser (a monster braille printer) costs about $10K. Hmm, sounds like an entrepreneurial opportunity making a cheaper unit. What's the input? Unicode? -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
Eric Oyen wrote: 120 pound bond paper is rather hard on the print heads they use (and its the only stuff that will reasonably hold braille). Bond paper is traditional. Haven't they figured out a way to emboss thin sheets of polymer yet? -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
give me a year and I should also know braille sufficiently to make reading man pages a bit easier (although I would still prefer a more usable format for editing, etc. I fortunately have working eyes, but i fully understand blind people, and completely don't understand why there is still no braile terminal available. This (with classic unix software) would be IMHO golden solution for blind people. I mean no full screen but just a braile printer as terminal.
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
braille display devices are available. unfortunately, they often cost well into the mid thousands and most of us blind folks cannot afford that essential technology. as for driver support, that is still entirely up to the hardware vendor to provide either the API or communications protocols for that device. I have a BrailleX ELBA-40 here (40 column braille display). unfortunately, it does not work because of a battery failure. it can connect either through a wireless pcmcia card or via USB port. I acquired it on the used market for $950 and it took me nearly a year to pay it off. as for the braille interface drivers, most are pretty standard across linux and UNIX/BSD systems. -eric On Jul 28, 2012, at 10:15 AM, Wojciech Puchar wrote: give me a year and I should also know braille sufficiently to make reading man pages a bit easier (although I would still prefer a more usable format for editing, etc. I fortunately have working eyes, but i fully understand blind people, and completely don't understand why there is still no braile terminal available. This (with classic unix software) would be IMHO golden solution for blind people. I mean no full screen but just a braile printer as terminal.
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
I fortunately have working eyes, but i fully understand blind people, and completely don't understand why there is still no braile terminal available. This (with classic unix software) would be IMHO golden solution for blind people. I mean no full screen but just a braile printer as terminal. no money there...
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
Amit Kulkarni wrote: completely don't understand why there is still no braile terminal available. Especially since they were invented back in the 1980's (at the latest). I played with a prototype at a meeting of the Forth Interest Group circa 1987. -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
the problem is that they are so expensive. in fact, anything that is marketed to the blind gets some cost boost because the manufacturers claim its a niche market (I don't call 26 million people a niche market). there is also the problem that these same manufacturers use government contracting as a primary source of their income, thus they charge the government as much as they can legally get away with. If I had the money, I would certainly be finding a way to manufacture braille displays using good quality materials and still keep the price down (automated assembly). given enough of either time or production levels, I could have enough units selling far below the current market rate. this would also allow me to have spare parts and repair contractors for local delivery. Believe me, I have taken apart some of the more recent models of braille displays and they are cheap built. there is no reason why the market is so over-inflated. anyway, enough of my rant. -eric On Jul 28, 2012, at 11:47 AM, Jack Woehr wrote: Amit Kulkarni wrote: completely don't understand why there is still no braile terminal available. Especially since they were invented back in the 1980's (at the latest). I played with a prototype at a meeting of the Forth Interest Group circa 1987. -- Jack Woehr # We commonly say we have no time when, Box 51, Golden CO 80402 # of course, we have all that there is. http://www.softwoehr.com # - James Mason, _The Art of Chess_, 1905
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
This (with classic unix software) would be IMHO golden solution for blind people. I mean no full screen but just a braile printer as terminal. no money there... yes. the problem with small market. Such device should not be expensive if produced in noticable amount
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
braille display devices are available. unfortunately, they often cost well into the mid thousands and most of us blind folks cannot afford that essential technology. i don't mean full screen braile display, but braile printer. With special paper i think it could be made from dotmatrix printer after removing ink tape. RS-232 connected, used as normal serial console.
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
Especially since they were invented back in the 1980's (at the latest). I played with a prototype at a meeting improvement could be done to be able to print on some special plastic paper that could be then at other end ironed out and recycled. I really feel sad that blind people, in XXI century, have to suffer by using screen readers or other strange things instead of just having TERM=dumb, and quickly read what's printed with fingers, and type commands. And performing as good as years ago unix pioneers using teletypes. Yes - full screen editors, mc etc.. are great but only if you have working eyes.
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 11:41:03PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: Especially since they were invented back in the 1980's (at the latest). I played with a prototype at a meeting improvement could be done to be able to print on some special plastic paper that could be then at other end ironed out and recycled. I really feel sad that blind people, in XXI century, have to suffer by using screen readers or other strange things instead of just having TERM=dumb, and quickly read what's printed with fingers, and type commands. It should probably be an TERM=thumb then in an ideal world.. And performing as good as years ago unix pioneers using teletypes. Yes - full screen editors, mc etc.. are great but only if you have working eyes. Janjaap van Velthooven -- / __/ /_/ __/ /_ __/ __/ /___ / / /_ __/___/_/_ /___ / / __/ /___ / / janj...@stack.nl /___/_/_/_/_/_/_/___/_/_/
Re: [www.openbsd.org] Re: man pages with screen reader
oh yeah. thermoform paper. the problem is that any heat tended to permanently deform it. it did produce some nice sharp braille. the other thing which works well for storing long term braille (like an index card) is the plastic backing out of bacon packages. that stuff is heavy enough that braille will almost last longer than you do. the old steel perkiness brailler has been around since the late 1880's. they were manual units (no electrics were made until someone made the first computerized units back in the late 1980's). since then, the price point on these devices hanse't changed appreciably, even though manufacturing costs have gone down. this leads me to the conclusion that the price is being held artificially high in an effort to maximize the amount of funds that can be acquired via government contracts. that pretty much leaves out those on the lower economic rungs (which is slightly more than 90% of the blind population in the US). there are days when I seem to rant too much. -eric On Jul 28, 2012, at 2:41 PM, Wojciech Puchar wrote: Especially since they were invented back in the 1980's (at the latest). I played with a prototype at a meeting improvement could be done to be able to print on some special plastic paper that could be then at other end ironed out and recycled. I really feel sad that blind people, in XXI century, have to suffer by using screen readers or other strange things instead of just having TERM=dumb, and quickly read what's printed with fingers, and type commands. And performing as good as years ago unix pioneers using teletypes. Yes - full screen editors, mc etc.. are great but only if you have working eyes.
