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Date:         Mon, 11 Jan 1993 02:00:06 EST
Reply-To:     Bill McGarry <wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com>
From:         Bill McGarry <wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com>
Subject:      Handicap Digest # 3084

                             THE HANDICAP DIGEST

                                 Issue # 3084

                          Sunday, January 10, 1993

Today's Topics:


                                ******


                               Re: Prostheses
                       re: Stopping RSD by amputation
                                Puppet show?
                        Rheumatoid Arthritis question
                               I/O Conference
                        software for word processing
                         Looking Back from 12/31/92
                          CPSR call for ideas (fwd)
                          ASKERIC New Address (fwd)
                             suggestions needed


                                ******


To subscribe to the Handicap Digest mailing list or have your
thoughts in the next issue, please send electronic mail to
Bill McGarry at any of the following addresses:


UUCP:       uunet!bunker!wtm
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Fidonet:    The Handicap News BBS (141/420)   1-203-337-1607
            (300/1200/2400 baud, 24 hours)
Compuserve: 73170,1064

                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 337-1518



------



Subject: Re: Prostheses
From: mschnitg@magic.prime.com (Monica Schnitger)
Organization: Computervision, Bedford, MA, USA

Thanks to all who have responded to my request for information
on prosthetic devices for someone who recently had a knee
disarticulation.  Unfortunately, something happened to our
systems here over the Christmas holiday - I never saw my
original posting appear (although it must have, since people
responded!), and I'm afraid I may have missed some of the replies.

If you sent a reply to the newsgroup before December 30th, please
either resend or email it to me directly.

I have already followed up on a number of the leads you all have
provided - I am amazed at the amount of information available
and at the kindness of the people with whom I have dealt so far.

To update you all: My friend is going for a preliminary prosthesis
fitting on Friday - and now has STACKS of information to pore over
before making a final decision.

Again, thanks for all of your help!

                monica





------



Subject: re: Stopping RSD by amputation
From: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu (Jim Graham)
Organization: Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, Bloomington, Indiana


To: Stefan Welch

Stefan,

In a recent message you asked what "RSD" stood for.

It stands for "Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy".

If you need further info, feel free to ask.

Regards,
Jim Graham

        -> ->Disclaimer: I do not speak for my company. <- <-
                          Neither do they speak for me.
 ______________________________________________________________________
| Internet: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu                              |
|           dolmen!jgraham@moose.cs.indiana.edu                        |
| BBS:      The PORTAL DOLMEN BBS/ParaNet ALPHA-GAMMA (sm) (9:1012/13) |
|            (812) 334-0418, 24hrs.                                    |
|______________________________________________________________________|




------



Subject: Puppet show?
From: dalek@med.unc.edu (Dale Krams)

A couple of days ago (maybe yesterday) there was a posting here from
someone who is a puppeteer.  I'm not sure if this person was actually
part of the "Kids on the Block" puppet show, or a different one.

Anyway,  I plan an annual conference for families of medically fragile
children.  The puppet show sounds like something worth looking into
for the conference.  Can whomever posted this info, or anyone who
could provide more details on this or similar types of things please contact
me?  I'd like to find out more.

Thanks.

By the way, the conference is scheduled for May 1 in Chapel Hill, NC.

Dale




------



Subject: Rheumatoid Arthritis question
From: an1223%anon.penet.fi@fuug.fi (Joe Schmukytelli)
Organization: Anonymous contact service

If a blood test for Rheumatoid(sp?) Arthritis comes back "a little high"
does that mean I've got it? What can I expect as far as: 1) bullshit
from the medicos? 2) symptoms? 3) what sort of drugs they are
likely to try to put me on? 4) how bad can it get and how fast?
Are there things I should/shouldn't do that might make it better/worse?


------

---
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi.
Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.




------



Subject: I/O Conference
From: novakme@macc.wisc.edu (Mark Novak)


Mark E. Novak
Trace Research and Development Center
Waisman Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1500 Highland Avenue
Madison,  WI  53705-2280

Bitnet Address: novakme@wiscmacc
Internet Address: novakme@macc.wisc.edu

DATE:  January 1993

SUBJECT:



Research underway at the University of WI-Madison to enable
users with disabilities to access computer workstations.

Disability Action Committee for X (DACX):

Computer workstations typically run some variant of the Unix
operating system, and until recently, providing a "common"
access solution was difficult.  However, standardization of
the X Window System under the X Consortium has brought
uniformity to Unix.  The X Window System therefore provides
an ideal place to start a "cross-platform" workstation
accessibility solution.

A number of efforts for providing access to X Windows have
already begun in research labs around the country.  At
Georgia Tech, Elizabeth Mynatt is leading a group of
researchers who are attempting to provide "transparent"
access to the X Window System applications for computer
users who are blind.  At MIT, Keith Packard published in the
Winter 1992 X Resource an article about his research using
XTrap (i.e. XTrap is an X extension developed to monitor
both the X server and clients connected to it.) extension to
possibly assist people with a physical disability.

The Trace Center, a R&D Lab at the University of WI-Madison,
has also been working on computer access strategies for
several years.  As a result of these efforts, both Apple
Computer and IBM have funded cooperative development at the
Trace Center aimed at making their personal computers and
operating systems more accessible.  For Apple, the Easy
Access System Utility software is distributed as part of
every Macintosh computer sold while IBM distributes the
AccessDOS software package free of charge to anyone who
requests it.  The Trace Center also developed the Access
Pack for Microsoft Windows.  Easy Access, AccessDOS, and the
Access Pack software packages contain multiple features,
many of which assist individuals with physical disabilities
to utilize the standard input devices (i.e. keyboard and
mouse) more readily.

Prompted by numerous requests from individuals and computer
companies, the Trace Center organized a cooperative group of
researchers and companies interested in developing access
solutions to X Windows.  The group is called the
Disabilities Access Committee for X (DACX).  An initial
meeting of DACX was held in Minneapolis in October, 1992, in
conjunction with Closing-The-Gap, a national conference with
a focus on people with disabilities.  Discussion at the
meeting centered around what is being done to provide
accessibility features for computer workstations.

Subcommittees were formed to further research three specific
areas: the definition of hooks or library calls needed to
develop screen readers in X; screen magnification in X; and
built in physical access features for X.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Anyone interested in more information about DACX or the
Trace Center, are encouraged to contact either Dr. Gregg
Vanderheiden or Mark Novak at the Trace Center, 1500
Highland Avenue, Madison, WI. 53705-2280 (608) 262-6966 or
via email (novakme@macc.wisc.edu).  Please include your mail
address with company name, an email address, and a telephone
number to facilitate sending of printed materials.




------



Subject: software for word processing
From: cldavies@nyx.cs.du.edu (Cindy Davies)
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.

I just finished talking to Shelley.  Shelley is a quadraplegic with
minimal mobility in one hand. (one finger)  She is working on a
grant to get a computer to assist her with payroll and wordprocessing
functions.

I have agreed to assist her in defining the parameters needed in the
computer.  I don't know where to go to find software that is taylored
to voice activation and/or commands.

She needs primairly wordprocessing and payroll software.

Any assistance anyone can offer will be appriciated.  Please reply
via Email to cldavies@silver.sdsmt.edu or cldavies@nyx.cs.du.edu

Thanks
Cindy

--

TNSTAAFD -- There's No Such Thing As A Free Dog.

cldavies@silver.sdsmt.edu        cldavies@nyx.cs.du.edu




------



Subject: Looking Back from 12/31/92
From: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael Hart)

[Forwarded from the PACS-L mailing list by Patt Bromberger]

[Some parts of this posting have been deleted]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

Comments from December 31, 1991        About Ideas From the Past

Contents

**Form Versus Content. . .The Eternal Battle is Finally Ending**

**"Drinking from a Firehose". . .I Dare You to Say that Again!**

**Easy Storage Versus Easy Access. . .Compression Versus ASCII**
"Send Them the Sourcecode". . .I Dare You, Too, Say that Again!*

**Moderators Should be Moderate. . .Should They Not?
"This Will Be the Last Posting on the Subject"

Part 1
**Form Versus Content. . .The Eternal Battle is Finally Ending**

Margination. . .Form Versus Content. . .We Have a New Winner and
the Winner is. . . . . . . . .the reader!

Can we really stay with incompatible forms of Desktop Publishing
programs that require expensive computers to see or print them??
In the short run we will stay with Plain Vanilla ASCII for email
and other things that must read a wide audience, but for narrow,
narrower, narrowest communications there may be an advantage for
using media other people won't be willing or able to read.

Paper printing has spent an inordinate amount of time and energy
on preparing manuscripts for publication in the matter of form a
page takes and on margins for those pages.

The amount of time and energy has been SO great that we take for
granted most of what we see on the printed page, except perhaps,
when it become ridiculously obvious in newspaper columns when it
happens that one line has twice as many letters as the following
line. . .a n d  t h e  p r i n t e r s  a d d  a  s p a c e  t o
each position in the line to justify the margination once more--
just as other professions go out of their way to justify similar
idiosyncracies of their own.

However, with electronic text there is no need for pages at all,
and using varied margins does not cost paper, the expense of the
paper is the idiosyncratic cause of the thousands of hyphens all
over the average book.  You are probably so used to it that your
mind skips over it, but take a look and you will find the margin
is justified at the expense of 10% of the lines being hyphenated
to accommodate the saving of perhaps 1 or 2% of the paper (If an
example page had 50 lines and it would cost an entire line. . .a
not terribly great prospect. . .then the book would be 2% longer
in pages to eliminate all the extra hyphenation; if the page for
the example contained 100 lines, then 1% more pages would do it.

Just as there is no need for pagination with scrolls or with the
electronic equivalent, so, too, there is no need for margination
.. . .as the number of characters is the same to contain articles
with an average of 65 characters. . .whether the margins are all
the same, such as in this article, or whether half the lines are
75 characters and the other half are 55 characters, and none are
actually 65 characters.

For those of you who have wondered about my margination, I would
be easily willing to tell you half the reason for it. . .I would
write on early word processors that justified the margins with a
method similar to the newspaper example above, by the insertions
of spaces between words to create the justification.  You can do
this still with most word processors today, but at least most of
them will insert the spaces where you can see them (WYSIWYG. . .
What You See Is What You Get). . .but. . .there were no WYSIWYGs
back then, so I learned to write in manners that Let Me See What
I Was Going To Get. . .as I wanted to determine the phraseology,
not have the computer do it for me.

As far as _I_ am concerned, Desktop Publishing has focused quite
enough on fonts, form, margination, proportional spacing and the
antiquated 8 1/2 by 11 inch format. . .so much, in fact, that an
electronic text from Desktop Publishing output is so messy in an
Etext of the Plain Vanilla ASCII that it is often pretty useless
unless presented in the Desktop Publishing program.

The second reason has to do with the 81 pages of rules about the
FORM of my thesis, including margination right to left, top from
bottom, and much, much, much more.

At any rate, electronic texts will eliminate the needs for pages
and margins to be regulated. . .although people will continue to
regulate them for years to come, and programs will allow authors
of theses and other works to write while thinking only about the
CONTENT of what they write, and then translate it into the FORMs
required by this officialdom or that one with ease.  In the past
it used to be a major requirement that the authors spend totally
inordinate amounts of time or money. . .or both. . .on "Payments
of Dues" proving they were really interested enough in admission
to the cliques of those who had already done so.

Why is form prevalent over content?  Because those power people,
who earned their power the old-fashioned way, are afraid the new
people will outstrip them with less effort, since the new people
have new tools.  Some professors of Shakespeare don't like their
new students being able to look up "To be or not to be," seconds
after typing it into a computer search program. . .while another
type of Shakespeare professor sees this as a way of furthering a
limited access to their favorite author to an unlimited access--
and to an unlimited audience.

The difference is that some professors are true teachers in true
fashion as was Geoffrey Chaucer's "Oxford Scholar," who was said
to be the kind of man who "would gladly learn and gladly teach,"
("And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche," the exact quote)
while other professors have a different philosophy that has been
described as that of "A Cat Guarding the Cream" (Huber, 1992).

At any rate, you may notice that some of the etext I have edited
for Project Gutenberg have a minimal number of hyphens and also,
widows and orphans have been minimized in pagination/margination
and also in phraseology. . .i.e. many more of our lines end with
the end of a sentence, a comma, etc., and rarely begin with only
one word from the previous line.

Thus begins the end of the tyranny of FORM OVER CONTENT as it is
practiced today in the art of publishing.

[remainder of articles deleted]

So much for the past, but I like the direction we have come. . .
and tomorrow, in 1993, I will write something about the future--


Happy New Year!

=====================================================

Thank you for your interest,

Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu



--- End of forwarded message from "Michael S. Hart"
 <ci!UHUPVM1.BITNET!!PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU:PACS-L>




------



Subject: CPSR call for ideas (fwd)
From: patt@squid.tram.com (Patt Bromberger)

[Forwarded from the ADA-Law mailing list]

Borrowed from Ernest Perez who wrote:

I am submitting following, after it had already been forwarded
through 4 or 5 lists, judging from the header.  I cleared the
header back down to the original sender.

Thought it might be of interest to this Information-processing-
minded community.

cheers,
-ernest perez

 Life is pain. Anybody that says different
 is selling something.

 Ernest Perez, Ph.D, Information Systems Administrator
 Oregon State Library, Salem OR 97310
 perez@osl.or.gov         503-378-8618, voice

reply-To:     Gary Chapman <chapman@silver.lcs.mit.edu>
              <CPSR@GWUVM.BITNET>
from:         Gary Chapman <chapman@silver.lcs.mit.edu>
subject:      Call for Comments About Computing and the Future

       PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS WHEREVER YOU FEEL IT IS APPROPRIATE
              BUT ONLY WHERE YOU FEEL IT IS APPROPRIATE

      AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE YOUR SAY ABOUT COMPUTING IN THE FUTURE

This is Gary Chapman, director of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, office
of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.  I edit The CPSR
Newsletter, a quarterly publication that goes to all CPSR members and
about 400 other people, including a lot of policymakers, members of
Congress, administration officials, etc.

We're going to try something unusual for the next CPSR Newsletter, and
I'm putting out a call for help.  We're going to publish a special issue
 on "What the Clinton Administration Can Do For The Computing Profession
 and the Public."  I'm sending out this message to ask people to send me
 SHORT contributions to this issue, just brief comments about what the
new administration can do to help support computing in the United
States, or perhaps the world.

Here are a few basic guidelines for these submissions:

1.  SHORT MEANS SHORT -- In order to publish as many of these as we can,
 we need to keep each contribution to about 100-150 words, max, one or
two paragraphs.  In fact, anything longer will probably be eliminated
out of fairness to others.

2.  YOU MUST IDENTIFY YOURSELF -- Again, briefly, with just your name
and one line that says something about you, such as Joe Blow or Sally
Smith, Programmer, BillyBob Corporation, or Centerville, Ohio, or
something like that, whatever you prefer.

3.  ADDRESS ISSUES OF PUBLIC POLICY -- In order to make these
contributions relevant to the Clinton administration, they should
concern issues about which government can or should do something, or
stop doing, whatever.  These include major issues such as privacy,
access to information, computer networks like the Internet or NREN, R&D
priorities, equitable access to computers, intellectual property,
defense policy, risks to the public, etc.  We're not really interested
in contributions that are self-serving, parochial, excessively arcane or
 trivial, belligerently and unconstructively critical, and so on.  We
will favor messages that discuss the intersection of computing and major
 issues of concern to the public at large.

4.  PLEASE INCLUDE A WORKABLE E-MAIL ADDRESS -- In case I have to get
back to you about the text.  We won't publish e-mail addresses, I
promise.

5.  GET ALL CONTRIBUTIONS TO ME BY JANUARY 15, 1993.  My e-mail address
is chapman@silver.lcs.mit.edu.

This is not limited to people in the United States, although overseas
contributors will have to make a case for what the Clinton
administration should do to help international computing -- the focus
will be on U.S. government  policy.

We're going to try and get this issue into the hands of the key players
on computing and high tech policy in the new administration.  For the
most part we already know who those people are, and we're talking to
them about the issues that CPSR is working on.  This newsletter will
give them a good impression, we hope, of the concerns of the computing
profession and people who use computer networks.  Consider this an
opportunity for a kind of "hard copy" town hall.

Thanks for your help!  Get those messages coming!

Gary Chapman
Coordinator
The 21st Century Project
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Cambridge, MA
chapman@silver.lcs.mit.edu



--- End of forwarded message from PEREZ Ernest
 <ci!UHUPVM1.BITNET!!PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU:PACS-L>





------



Subject: ASKERIC New Address (fwd)
From: sackman@plains.nodak.edu (Gleason Sackman)

[Forwarded from PACS-L by Patt Bromberger]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

---------- Text of forwarded message ----------


                       ***  TO ALL K-12 EDUCATORS  ***


                  ***  A NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR ASKERIC  ***



ASKERIC now has a new e-mail address: askeric@ericir.syr.edu

Please use this new address when you send messages and questions to
ASKERIC.

ERIC is...
The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a
federally-funded national information system that provides access to
an extensive body of education-related literature.  ERIC provides a
variety of services and products at all education levels.

ASKERIC is...
ASKERIC is a question-answering service for teachers, library media
specialists, and administrators.  Anyone involved with K-12
education can send an e-mail message to ASKERIC.  Drawing on the
extensive resources of the ERIC system, ASKERIC will respond with an
answer within 48 working hours.  If you have questions about K-12
education, learning, teaching, information technology, educational
administration - ASKERIC.

In the first six weeks of service, ASKERIC has answered hundreds of
questions.  Highlights include helping:

* A reading teacher locate information on a particular instructional
technique.

* A school computer teacher find information on computer software
copyright laws.

* A high school teacher use the Internet as a source of
teaching/learining materials for his school.

* A school administrator find information on student testing.

* A school librarian learn how to conduct ERIC database searches via
the Internet.

If you have an education-related question, ASKERIC will provide an
answer.  To ASKERIC, e-mail your question(s) to:

                          askeric@ericir.syr.edu


Andrew Abrahamson
Network Information Specialist
Internet: askeric@ericir.syr.edu

ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources
030 Huntington Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York 13244-2340
Voice: (315) 443-9114
Fax:   (315) 443-5448



------

-------
Gleason Sackman                           BBS:       sackman@sendit.nodak.edu
Coordinator                               Internet:  sackman@plains.nodak.edu
SENDIT - NoDak's K-12 Telcom Network      Bitnet:    sackman@plains.bitnet
BOX 5164,  NDSU Computer Center           Voice: (701)237-8109
Fargo, ND  58105                          Fax:   (701)237-8541






------



Subject: suggestions needed
From: Sally Kalin (SWK%PSULIAS.BITNET@uunet.uu.net)

[from the ADA-LAW mailing list]

Please respond directly to the author, not PACS-L.  Thanks, Dana

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The Center for the Study of Higher Education, Penn State University, will
be conducting a nationwide study of the instructional uses of technologies
in postsecondary institutions. This study is being done for the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For the first time, some of the focus will
be on the use of such technologies in libraries.

         I am assisting the Center in identifying academic libraries that are
leaders in library automation, especially those libraries that work closely
with other campus units, such as Distance Education, Academic Computing,
Teacher education, Telecommunications, etc.

Currently we need to identify those institutions that have made
significant progress in library automation and for which the HIGHEST
degree awarded is:

        Associate degree (junior colleges, community colleges, etc.)

        Bachelor's Degree

If you know of any institutions that fit into these categories, please send
me an e-mail message. If there is enough interest, I will be glad to
summarize for PACS-L. Many thanks!


Sally Kalin
swk@psulias.psu.edu
Computer Based Resources & Services Team
Penn State University Libraries




------






                                ******

                  End of Issue # 3084 of the Handicap Digest

                                ******
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU