13 Dec
2015
13 Dec
'15
3:10 p.m.
On 13 December 2015 at 13:46, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
At CDC Sunnyvale ops back in the 1970s, we had a blind
programmer working.
His job output came as punched cards and he had no problem reading them by
feel. I remember him and his beautiful guide dog.
Hmm, that kinda makes sense. It would be kinda/sorta like braille. (I
guess that would also work for punched tape as well.) I couldn't tell
you how good it would be though, I might be vision impaired, but not
enough that I've learnt braille. I wonder if any minis or mainframes
(or micros) could actually produce output as braille...
In the same sort of spirit, I recall that one of the
secretaries used a
monitor-cum-camera affair to enlarge her work documents so that she could
read them.
CCTV readers. They're still a thing. The tests and exams centre at my
university has a bunch of them (one each per exam room, and a bunch of
old analogue ones still sitting about). I find the older analogue ones
are better than the newer digital ones. If only because the text zoom
is more "fluid" (my preferred size of "embiggened" (what, it's a
perfectly cromulent word) text is right between two of the settings on
the machines we have which is mildly annoying); they also have less
artefacts when using non-standard video modes (reverse video, or high
contrast modes).
It's sad that early corporate efforts to
accommodate all people, no matter
the impairment, aren't better documented.
I'd buy a book on that in a heartbeat; necause that is very much of
interest to myself. I know DEC had their DECtalk speech synthesizers
(isn't the eminent Dr. Hawking's voice an old DECtalk?) and they could
be connected to serial lines.
Regards,
Christian
--
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.