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ok. My collection of various Blazie firmware is growing, from the 640 (1998) to the Braille Lite's last one in 2003. The only other language I have is Spanish, so I've started at least looking at how it did phonemes differently and what drove the greater inflection there. However, I'm aware of French (standard, plus Canadian) and Czech languages. German was there too I believe, along with Russian. These are long lost, but if you or your friends have them from any Blazie Engineering Unit type, I'd take it. For any language. The goal is to really get these files before they disappear, if they haven't already.

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Borris

@jaybird110127 I used to have a bunch of those disks backed up, starting from October 1997 (1997 was a really bad year for BNS updates) through 2002, when I stopped using a BNS. They were all on a hard drive that died in 2010, with other backups also disappearing, of course.
@Jayson Smith
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Jayson Smith

@BorrisInABox Yeah the earliest update file we ever had was a 1994 update for the Type 'n Speak, which would have definitely been before the great letter to sound rules rewrite or exceptions dictionary or whatever they did to correct numerous pronunciation errors later.
@Borris
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Borris

@jaybird110127 Oh boy, early flashable updates times.

The earliest unit I ever used was a BNS with May 31, 1989 revision, which I think had a slightly different Votrax configuration. It also had the word "parameters" misspelled in the help file as "paramiters" or something like that, it's been a while. And, if you pressed I think it was dots 2-3-6 chord, it said "not implemented," but the pronunciation rules sucked, so it was more like "not implmntd". I think the calculator was an option at that point.

@Jayson Smith
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Borris

@jaybird110127 @Tamasg Yeah, 1989 was the last time that stuff wasn't built-in. Also, until I think 1992, the highest pitch you could get was about 110 Hz base frequency. If you tried to go higher than that, it would just click. You could, however, go outside the range when changing the "frequency" and make lots of bad noises happen.
This entry was edited (Sunday, September 27, 2026, 1:38 AM)
in reply to Jayson Smith
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Tamas G

@jaybird110127 wow that's wild! To think they were making them for that long, I didn't really get to use one until 2002 or so and it was the watered down APH Scholar but that's also why I probably have passion for researching this chip to death, after moving to the US from Hungary that was my very first note-taking product though thank goodness my English didn't evolve out of how it accented things. :D @BorrisInABox
@Jayson Smith @Borris
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Tamas G

@BorrisInABox yeah, to be fair it might be that not every update was super important. What helps more is having a few (like 1-3 of each year) more so than every single update itself. So even scattered over time helps. I think the BNS 640 came out around 1995. Now, the original 1987 Braille N Speak I think was what used the SC01 chip and what I've heard in demos of that in some places. I'm not sure which model switched them to the Sc02. @jaybird110127
@Jayson Smith @Borris
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Jayson Smith

@BorrisInABox I'm pretty sure the 640 came out in late 1991 or sometime in 1992. Iirc it was being talked about in the Computer Folks cassette magazine in or around September 1991 as a new product. Mom got Dad one for Christmas in 1993. They switched to flash for ROM storage (that's what enabled updates to be sent to customers on disks rather than swapping a ROM chip) in 1994.
@Borris
in reply to David Goldfield
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Borris

@DavidGoldfield From what I remember, there was a revision of the same date for the BNS 640. Obviously different firmware. Might have been a pre-release though, not sure.

That happened in 1994 I think, also, where the BNS 640 and classic shared a revision date of August 15. That's after the federal quota thing happened, and classics started announcing Braille 'n' Speak Classic Ready" when you turned it on.

This entry was edited (Sunday, September 27, 2026, 10:51 AM)
in reply to Borris
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Nick Giannak III

@BorrisInABox There was also a BNS Classic revision on August 1, 1994, but I wonder if it was for the tutorial only?

I never liked the fact taht the only revision I could play with was December 12, because you couldn't do the E-Chord clicks Fred demonstrated for Macro signaling. In fact, you never could again.

@Borris
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Arfy

@jaybird110127 @BorrisInABox Yeah, please. Archive all the things! And same. I had update documents going back to 1994 at one point, and the update files for 1996? 1997, 1998 and 1999. Someone did a recording of the Braille lite 2000 manual from 1997, from the 4-trak tapes, but the quality was utterly terribad. Sorry to whoever did that recording but yikes. Its on Jake's site.
@Jayson Smith @Borris
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bscross32

@jaybird110127 @BorrisInABox Did the 640 still retain the sort of elevated keys with the raised edges and finger divets? I feel like it did, and the 2000 did away with those in favor of the flatter keys with rounded edges.
@Jayson Smith @Borris
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bscross32

@jaybird110127 @BorrisInABox Hmm, what about the serial port. I remember those earlier models actually had the pins in the machine rather than the cable, so if you bend a pin or something, you had to send it in. Then they did away with that in favor of a round connector, almost like a PS/2 keyboard or mouse port.
@Jayson Smith @Borris
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Tamas G

@BorrisInABox I thought they borrowed that connector idea from the Macintosh line? I believe when I was looking at the pinout on it it's wired up the same, so I wouldn't be surprised. Of course all of my vintage machines here have the standard male pins, but I have one with a female end and that round connector on the other to hook the unit up with easily. @bscross32 @jaybird110127
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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Borris

@bscross32 @jaybird110127 Yep, you could just take a cable from an Image Writer II printer and connect two Braille 'n' Speaks together. Used to do that all the time to transfer files back and forth with the only other blind kid at my school, and we both had BNS 2000's.
@Jayson Smith @bscross32
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Borris

@bscross32 @jaybird110127 I had an older Doubletalk LT with that connector on it, and a super serial to DB9 for connecting to a PC. The headphone jack on my BNS 2000 broke, which also stopped the speaker from working, so for about a week, I ran around with a Doubletalk LT connected to it in remote mode. It worked, but there was no indexing. I was at least able to send control characters to the Doubletalk to speed it up.
@Jayson Smith @bscross32
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Borris

@bscross32 @jaybird110127 No, even the first ones had the flat keys. The Braille 'n' Speak classic had those until either 1992 or 1993, don't remember which. The first couple I used had those raised keys with the indents in them.
@Jayson Smith @bscross32
in reply to Tamas G
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Kara Goldfinch

@BorrisInABox @bscross32 @jaybird110127 The only one I remember playing with was the 2000. I didn't get on with it, but I'll say this for it, it was so tiny compared to my Eureka A4 I used at school. It was a heavy chunk in comparison .
Probably the same height as a bns but maybe as wide front to back as 3 of them. Also I would've loved to have internal storage. The Eureka only had enough for 2 documents to be open. One in the Note Taker program and another in one of the other programs. You couldn't use the Word Processor or the Basic Interpreter at the same time.
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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David Goldfield

@bscross32 @BorrisInABox @jaybird110127 I remember when we started making the pronunciation fixes. That work started in 1991 but I don't know if they made their way to the 640's first update or if they got in with the summer 1992 update. Those fixes were added by a wonderful developer named Cathy Hall, who I feel compelled to mention because few people outside of the company knew about her or her talent and I think her name and contributions should be publicly documented. I gave her a list of words which were being mispronounced at the time, with my first name at the top of the list, as it pronounced David with a short a.
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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David Goldfield

@bscross32 @BorrisInABox @jaybird110127 Oh, I can't find the message that referenced this but someone brought up the calculator and stopwatch options. Yes, in the Bns classic, which cost $895, you could pay $99 extra to have the calculator and stopwatch added. I *think* the calculator and stopwatch might have become standard with the last update for the classic but it was a part of all other Blazie devices going forward. The calculator became a scientific calculator probably with the 1994 update.
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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Jayson Smith

@DavidGoldfield @bscross32 @BorrisInABox I don't assume you know of an archive of older firmware versions for these things? Like I say, my dad had a maintenance agreement as far as I know for as long as he owned a BNS, so we received plenty of BNS update disks through the mail. Sadly, we usually updated, then immediately reused the disks.
@Borris @David Goldfield @bscross32
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David Goldfield

@jaybird110127 @bscross32 @BorrisInABox I'm not aware of such an archive. I don't think I have many older updates on floppies but I still have quite a lot of disks to go through so it's possible that I might have a few.
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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Tamas G

@DavidGoldfield I think it's pretty cool that Blazie gave away the 10th anniversary update for free. Similar to how the BTSpeak had a free update, kind of cool. So I think it's pretty unique when customers who haven't had the budget to pay for the updates still get a chance to get one for their unit every few years as long as its in good working order. But yeah, no rush on the floppys :) I know USB floppy drives are becoming quickly as rare as the IDE ones are, mostly a thing only across Ebay rather than on Amazon directly. @jaybird110127 @bscross32 @BorrisInABox
@Jayson Smith @Borris @David Goldfield @bscross32
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Tamas G

@DavidGoldfield oooh I'm glad they still exist on there! Looked around a few months back before getting my retro machines and they all were saying out of stock, now I see one here that's prime overnight. I'm glad floppy tech gets to live on a little longer even if all floppys in circulation are rarely freshly unopened media but reused. @jaybird110127 @bscross32 @BorrisInABox
@Jayson Smith @Borris @David Goldfield @bscross32
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Tamas G

@DavidGoldfield Done: Cathy Hall is now credited in the project's history (1991 entry). And her work is still alive: my June 2003 Braille Lite firmware says "David" with a long A. Thank you for making sure she's remembered. @bscross32 @BorrisInABox @jaybird110127
@Jayson Smith @Borris @David Goldfield @bscross32
in reply to Tamas G
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David Goldfield

@bscross32 @BorrisInABox @jaybird110127 Thank you. Hardly anyone outside of the company knew her or her contributions and so this makes me very happy, considering that I also heard that Cathy passed away a while ago. I believe she also wrote the checkbook program and the financial calculator.
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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David Goldfield

@bscross32 @jaybird110127 @BorrisInABox I remember the differences in those two sets of keys. Eventually, the newer, flatter keys even made their way to the Bns classic; I have a classic with those newer keys and the 640 also had them. Not only did the classic have those slightly elevated keys but even the case was different; it had a different texture and the speaker sounded a bit different.
@Jayson Smith @Borris @bscross32
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Borris

@DavidGoldfield @bscross32 @jaybird110127 The speaker, I think, was exactly the same, but the differences in the case is what made it sound different.

I somehow managed to blow a BNS 640 speaker (still don't know how) and was able to replace it with an identical part from Radio Shack, for which I paid something like $5. This was before Blazie Engineering started putting in-line attenuation in.

And, speaking of that, who remembers the unique sound of the stopwatch? You could always tell just by listening when you were past second 29 of any given minute while it was going, especially on the classics.

@Jayson Smith @David Goldfield @bscross32
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David Goldfield

@jaybird110127 @BorrisInABox Yes, I think we started shipping the 640 in October of 1991, possibly late September. I think October 1991 was the earliest public release, although I remember testing them as early as maybe May or June when I started working there.
@Jayson Smith @Borris
in reply to Tamas G
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ondrosik

@Tamas G @Peter Vágner I found something. This archive contains some programs shipped with my Braille'n speak 2000 and sk firmware too and also some games downloaded from the blazie engineering website s.ondrosik.sk/f/8d55530822644e…
@Peter Vágner @Tamas G
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Tamas G

@ondrosik @pvagner perfect, once I expanded the full URL I could download! Huge thanks to you! Let me know if you'd be ok with any crediting by first name for the files, or not. And if not, that's OK too. I can just say "Slovak community" :)
@Peter Vágner @ondrosik