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Approved-By:  Bill McGarry <wtm@SHELDEV.SHEL.ISC-BR.COM>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.l-hcap
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 12:39:41 EDT
Reply-To:     Bill McGarry <wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com>
From:         Bill McGarry <wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com>
Subject:      Handicap Digest # 2827
X-To:         LHCAP <l-hcap@VM1.NODAK.EDU>

                             THE HANDICAP DIGEST

                                 Issue # 2827

                            Monday, July 27, 1992

Today's Topics:


                                ******

                           Blink Talk Digest # 663

                            Re: read.com problems
                         More fuel for the NFB fire?
                           Looking for some people
                               Re: Nls And nfb
                             Re: Artic Question
                            Re: B n s and grade 2
                                 Re: spanish
             advice sought on stereocopier and braille graphics


                                ******


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                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 337-1518



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Subject: Re: read.com problems
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)

It sounds like you need a piece of software called
tcless.com.  It does what all those other
programs are supposed to only without the bugs.  Why?
It wasn't developed for the blind but the sighted and is a command
that makes msdos come a little closer to unix.
I hope you are trying to sound like a complainer, tcless
is downloadable for  from any bbs that has it and is free
for personal use.  There are other versions of less that do
work pretty well though with some of them you must use
command line switches to make them talk.  This is the important
thing though when they do talk they do it in
applications mode and you don't need review mode either.
That read software should be updated to read wordperfect 5.1
files when I got a copy of it I had to convert my wordperfect 5.0 files
down to wordprfect 4.2 files and there's
not any possibility I pay for any junk like that even if
God himself wrote it!
That squint program as it appears now is no use either since you
loose information and it puts file titles up on the
screen without asin  asking you.  Very bad form!
Less and in this case tcless can be configured by the user either
on line or using an environment variable to get just what the user wants
to read on the screen and no more than that.
What really surprises me about all this blindware is that the authors of
it didn't get copies of the less source code and
study it to learn how to make h  their stuff
better.  Maybe they don't know how to program in C and can't read it.

jude




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Subject: More fuel for the NFB fire?
From: talmy@rand.org (Shel Talmy)

There was a recent post about a cane that the NFB had for sale,
which sounded exactly like what I wanted.  So, I called them at
the 410 area code, ergo--my nickle--stated what I wished to buy,
and was asked to call back, as apparently, there was nobody
around, a bit surprising as I thought this was a commercial
venture.

I asked politely, if it would not be possible for somebody to
call me back, as I was trying to buy a product.  Reluctantly, my
number was taken.

Well, that was 10 days ago, and I'm still waiting.  Should I stop
holding my breath...

Now I am not a member of any of the organizations currently under
attack, and have absolutely no axe to grind with or for any of
them.  So, when I ask if this is some of the infamous arrogance
the NFB is alleged to mete out in regular doses, it is out of
curiosity, not malice.  Was this the norm, or an isolated
incident?




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Subject: Looking for some people
From: jims@EOS.ARC.NASA.GOV (Jim Stevenson)

[Note from Bill McGarry: I am actually writing this on behalf
 of Jim after a phone conversation with Jim who would like to
 contact these people.]

I am trying to contact some old friends:
  Naomi Shaw
  Cathy Talbott
  Celia Sanchez
  Michael Yale (a lawyer in Canada?)

I would appreciate any word of these people.

Thank you,
Jim Stevenson
1-415-604-5720




------



Subject: Re: Nls And nfb
From: gcampbel@ecst.csuchico.edu (Gary Campbell)
Organization: California State University, Chico

Hi Carol.  Re: Arkenstone reading books.  That depends on the book.  I
am scanning books for college.  These are computer science hardcover
books, but in saying that they are Computer Science books I must also
include a warning that this only works if the book has a lot of normal
text, and not a lot of math and special signs.  I use the Optacon on the
occasional diagrams or if I need to know the exact syntax.  I have
scanned a few paperbacks, and once you figure out how to flatten the
binding enough it can work pretty well, but you do need to learn how to
get everything lined up right, and some books work better then others.
I am using a technique for text books where I scan odd pages upside down
(and even pages right side up) and then combine the files with a set of
macros I've written for my editor (Microemacs 3.11-- if anyone wants
them and understands that they weren't written for distribution and
aren't documented they're welcome to them).  I do this rather than use
the Arkenstone's interleaving feature for doing double-sided pages
because I can set the orientation when I do the recognition in batch
mode (with scanall actually); also I can recover from errors like
scanning the same page twice or skipping a page easier that way.  Hope
this helps.





------



Subject: Re: Artic Question
From: gcampbel@ecst.csuchico.edu (Gary Campbell)
Organization: California State University, Chico

Re: Artic BV 3.04 passthrough
(I use 3.03 but I hope they're the same!)  There are two ways: 1) Hit
the ALT key twice in quick succession, keeping it down on the second
press.  If you do it right you will hear a little beep the second time
it is pressed.  Then press your key.  2) Use CTRL-N but don't do the
double click thing.  I often get the point tracker when I'm trying to
exit a program and don't hit the ALT fast enough.  If you aren't using
the point tracker you might want to go into the user defined keys (ALT-U
from the control menu) and undefine it by moving to the "point tracker"
entry and pressing delete.





------



Subject: Re: B n s and grade 2
From: gcampbel@ecst.csuchico.edu (Gary Campbell)
Organization: California State University, Chico

In article <23183@handicap.news> Tandy.Way@f6.n377.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>a bunch of you on here told me what I believed to be the case that
>braille and speak was not capable of producing grade 2 braille
>creates the file she turns the tranlator on and brailles in grade
>two. then when she prints it she does I think she said a cord b and
>a cord t and the paper product comes out in grade 2.  so you all
>figure this one out. tandy

As you said, *she* writes in grade 2; the BNS did not translate it into
grade 2, it either translates it back to grade 1 or it doesn't translate
it at all, so the person who was hoping to use the BNS as a grade 1 to
grade 2 translator for computer generated text is out of luck.





------



Subject: Re: spanish
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)

If you want to get into a course on spanish that
will give you an instructor; Braille books, and tapes to work
with then there's only one answer.  Contact:
The Hadley School For The Blind
700 Elm Street
Winnetka, IL  60093
And sign up for the course and you're on your way.
One other feature of Hadley courses is that they're
correspondence courses.  This means you're going to have to
work harder than you ever thought was possible since you have
to answer *every* question since you're in
a class by yourself.  The benefit to this hard work is
that you will know spanish better than any other muchacho on the block and
be able to use it more effectively too.

The only other better alternative is to get $50.00; get on a plane and
put on a parachute fly over Mexico and jump out over a section that's
not visited by tourists and try to survive for six months.
I promise you you'll learn spanish real fast that way.

jude <dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil>




------



Subject: advice sought on stereocopier and braille graphics
From: pjr@splash.princeton.edu (Peter Rayner)
Organization: Princeton University

So, the quest for high resolution braille graphics goes on.  Having
managed the hard part, getting funding, I'm now left with the
comparatively simple question of finding a machine which will do the
job.  What job you ask having forgotten my long search?  Well I am
after some method of producing high-resolution tactile graphics.  I
use the term high resolution here to distinguish it from that produced
on braille embossers.  Unfortunately that doesn't quite cut it for the
sort of graphics I need.

I have seen two main candidates.
1) The Howe-Tech Pixelmaster.  I am currently testing this and finding
it wanting.  Apart from its fairly  regular software crashes, its
incompatibility with the rest of our system (not its fault I realize)
and its speed it has one serious drawback, it is discontinued and
passing out of support.  Given its high asking price I'm am tempted to
return it.

2)  The Minolta Stereocopier.  This produces the Rolles-Royce of
tactile diagrams in my opinion.  I had access to one of these in a
former job.  Coupled with a conventional LASER printer I managed to
produce fine output.  At a cost.  If I recall the start-up cost for
the machine was much lower, about $2000 but the marginal cost was very
high with paper running $1-$2 per sheet.  Also it wasn't automated in
the same way that a connected printer would be.  It also had one other
serious disadvantage ... noone in the U.S. ever seems to have heard of
the thing.  Is this "not invented here Syndrome" on a grand scale?

So now my questions.  Have I missed an alternative?  If someone told
me there was a Pixelmaster equivalent which (a) worked and (b) was
postscript-compatible they would have my eternal gratitude.  Does
anyone know of any suppliers of the stereocopier?  The magic paper to
make it work?  Also I usually had someone in another lab copy my stuff
for me as they actually had the machine.  How hard is the thing to
use?

Ok, that's more questions than is fair in one article.  Thanks in
advance for any advice.

--
Peter Rayner Program in Oceanic           |  WITH A MELON?!
and Atmospheric Sciences Princeton        | (Monty Python)
University                                |




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                  End of Issue # 2827 of the Handicap Digest

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