Hi all I'm very pleased to be able to report that I finally have my Index Everest-D V2 Braille embosser up and running again. I had a bit of a brain storm last night and it helped me to realise what I had done wrong. Actually, I cannot believe I was quite so dense on this issue. I can only say that I must have been looking too hard in order to resolve what was really a simple problem. OK, so most of my time is spent away from Windows these days, and I've probably forgotten an awful lot that I once knew. But I need to regain that knowledge because if things work out the way I want them too, I may be using Windows a lot more in the coming weeks and months. So anyway, here is how I solved the issue.
Firstly, I installed the Parallel To USB or USB to Parallel cable, (it is bi-directional). Then, once Windows had fiddled around with things and decided where it was going to put the device, I installed a new printer, the "Generic Text-Only" virtual printer. Then, I mapped the virtual printer driver to use the device installed at USB003 which, I discovered yesterday, was where Windows had put the virtual printer cable driver. Once that was done and I had set it to the default printer, (possibly something I should change as we also have a PhotoSmart PFC connected to that machine now), I went into Duxbury DBT which I had already installed and activated successfully. Once there, I opened the "Global" menus and then went into "Global Embosser Setup". I then changed the embosser settings to have it sent its output to the printer, rather than writing to a port. Then I set up the Braille characteristics so that the paper size was correct, margins set to my preference and the c orrect Braille template configured as default. After clicking on the "OK" button to store the settings, and again the "OK" button to exit the global setup, I opened a new file in Duxbury itself and just typed some text. When that was done, I hit Control+T to translate the text into Braille format. Then I hit "Control+E" to emboss the text into Braille. I followed the document-specific settings and hit "OK", whilst holding my breath in the expectation that nothing would happen. But, low and behold, a couple of seconds later, I heard the embosser, (which is located within an Index Everest acoustic cabinet), initialise and then start printing. I think everybody in the neighbourhood must have heard my yell of triumph! Finally, after almost 3 years of just sitting there redundant like something placed strategically just to fill up space, my embosser has a new lease of life. Now, difficult though it might be, I would love to be able to use the embosser on the Mac. However, I don't believe there is any translation software out there for Mac OS X which will support the old embosser which I have here. So although I believe I may be able to produce Braille on the Mac, (I believe there is software out there which can produce Braille files), it's unlikely I'll be able to find an actually piece of software to interface with the embosser itself. This is one of those times when I'm frustrated that I allowed my programming skills to drop. I have written software in BASIC and Pascal before today, but never got around to investigating C, C++ or CoCo as I had intended too. Perhaps that might be a good project for me, if only, if only, I can find some accessible learning material. But at least in the short term I am able to Braille emboss again. In the light of my hopes for the coming days, that could be very very important. I need to show that I'm a competent Braileist, and that I have transcription skills which I could use in a academic environment. Gordon ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/techno-chat@techno-chat.net> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/techno-chat@techno-chat.net/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
