The say all/read all command is dots 1-2-4-5-6-chord (er-chord), think everything read. That command reads from the line the cursor is on until the end of the document or until you stop reading.
@nycki96 @DavidGoldfield Back in the BNS days, they use the same explanation "everything read" as David just did. For whatever reason, that particular command always stuck in my head.
@Bruce @nycki96 I don't know with 100% certainty if "everything read" is why er-chord was originally chosen but it's definitely been a Blazie convention.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @nycki96 Does the braille 'n speak look the same as the BTSpeak? I mean, without the raspberry pie? I'm talking square buttons, smoothe texture and all?
@Bruce @nycki96 The Braille 'n Speak was different in many ways. It was larger, particularly from front to back, and it only had six keys and a space bar (no dots 7 and 8). The power button was a rocker switch, with the headphone jack behind the power button. The left side had an RS232C serial port, a port for the Blazie disk drive accessory and a small jack for the charger. Its surface was rougher and not smooth like the BT Speak.
@Bruce @nycki96 Yes. Blazie Engineering was owned by Deane Blazie. Blazie Technologies, the newer company, is owned by his son Bryan. Deane is the company's chief technology officer and his other sons, Chris and Stephen, are involved with software development.
@Bruce @nycki96 You'll likely find them if you dig deeply enough. The few videos I've found on YouTube seem to focus on the Braille 'n Speak Scholar, which was an APH-modified version that eventually got DoubleTalk speech. I never saw any of those models.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 In the beginning, you had to tell it how big your file was going to be, and it allocated that much memory to it. If you decided you needed more room, then the system had to completely rearrange the files that came after the ne you wanted to expand, and that could take five minutes or more.
@Bruce @nycki96 Yes, in the early updates you did have to determine how many pages of memory you wanted to allocate. I think commands to make files bigger or smaller came in around 1989.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @nycki96 There's so much about blindness tech I didn't know before the early 2000's, for example, I didn't know Kurzweil was an actual machine at one point.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 I had one back in 1989. It had always been my dad's dream that I would one day have a reading machine, so when the Kurzweil Personal reader came out, he mortgaged one of his tractors to get me one.
@Bruce @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 I can't imagine mortgaging a whole tracter just so my son could read PDF documents, and the thing is, i don't even know if PDF was even a thing in the 1980's.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce My dad didn't do that, but back at that time, he told me that one day, he was sure there would be some type of scanncer device that I could use to put it on a newspaper and it could read it to me. He had a lot of big dreams. When I got the KNFB Reader app on my phone and went there to see them, I said Dad remember when you said that one day such a thing would exist and it would be portable? He said he didn't remember saying that but he could see that being the case. I showed him the KNFB Reader app and he was a kid in a candy store. E very time someone came to visit, he insisted that I show them how it worked and would give me something in print to read.
@Bruce @mcourcel @nycki96 Starting in 1990, they added a little bit of inflection to the voice and reading was a bit smoother. I read a lot of material on it and it just never bothered me. In 1991, one of the developers added a ton of pronunciation fixes to the speech. I remember that my first name was one of the first words that I asked her to fix as it pronounced David with a short A.
@Bruce @mcourcel @nycki96 Yep, Artic was a screen reader that originally ran in DOS, although it did have a Windows version for a while but it didn't last. There were lots of DOS screen readers but many of them didn't or couldn't successfully make it over to Windows.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @mcourcel That's right. Remember ASAW? i used that until I gave up and switched to Window-eyes, then DOS. I tried Artic Winvision on an old Windows 95 computer but it never did work right. I saw it working on a coworker's computer, but it didn't work on mine.
@nycki96 @Bruce @mcourcel I used early versions of ASAW. I wanted so badly for it to work well but it just wasn't happening and that was a shame as I just loved ASAP. I eventually moved to JAWS for Windows.
@nycki96 @Bruce @mcourcel ASAP was a screen reader that ran in DOS. It stood for Automatic Screen Access Program. ASAW was Automatic Screen Access for Windows.
@Bruce @nycki96 @mcourcel Guys, this has been fun but it's way past my bed time. Thanks for the great conversation but I have to feed the cat, feed me and get some sleep.
@DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @nycki96 Artic WinVision did have quite a few things to recommend it, though. The idea of double-tapping modifier keys to bypass other programs and enter Artic commands was brilliant.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @mcourcel I think you're right. That's why I wanted it. There was a time when that screen reader worked better with IE than any others.
@mcourcel @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 I used an Artic for many years. Back then, you basically had Artic, JAWS for Dos, and Vocal-Eyes, with a few others like TinyTalk and ASAP sprinkled in.
@Bruce @mcourcel @nycki96 Yep, and also Flipper, Soft Vert and Verbal Operating System. I used ASAP, JAWS and Vocal-eyes but ASAP was always my favorite.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @mcourcel @nycki96 I knew dectalk was a machine at one point, I liked that synth, it sounded natural for the time and I use it now with my BTSpeak.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @mcourcel Mine too. I knew someone who had Vert. His AT instructor set up his computer but he never cared to learn it and his parents wanted me to show him. I tried to figure that thing out, and I doin't know if it's how the teacher set it up or Vert itself, but I was like, ok ASAP is way better than this.
@Bruce @mcourcel @DavidGoldfield they had an external too, which I never had but used at a center I took a course at and liked very much. It was called the Artic Transport.
@nycki96 @Bruce @mcourcel I vaguely remember hearing about the Transport. Artic also made computers to compete with the Braille 'n Speak. I had a chance to use one of them called the Ergo and it wasn't bad.
The first computer-based speech synthesis systems were created in the late 1950s, and the first complete text-to-speech system was completed in 1968. In 1961...
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @mcourcel Oh wow! I didn't know that. I heard of one that was made to compete with the Braille 'n Speak called the Ureka but I never saw one. i heard a demo over eVoice of one but that's it.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @Bruce @mcourcel I initially loved it. However, they did something really stupid. They attached the battery to the floppy disk drive. So, when the battery went out, even if you had the darned thing plugged in, you, could, not, use, the , disk drive atall. Really stupid.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @Bruce @mcourcel so, I literally had to use shell based internet access to store stuff on, and at that time, shell accounts were going away, around 1998/99.
@tinygirl @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @mcourcel If you want to play with one a bit, you can get basic shell access for free at www.freeshell.org. If it turns out to be something you like, you can pay for more access from them or from other providers like shellworld.net
@tinygirl @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @mcourcel Since it appears no one else has answered your question about a shell account, it is an account on a Unix/Linux server where you get a sertain allotment of space and a Unix prompt and the tools and utilities that go with it. In 1994, when I first got onto the Net, that was the way you did it.
@Bruce @tinygirl @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @mcourcel To add context to this, shell accounts definitely still exist. But a lot has changed from what they were used for 30 years ago. We call them hosting services now, and they're used for things like running websites and the like. On any given day, just to manage my own personal projects, I'm logged in to between 3 and 5 different shell accounts on the servers I maintain. That includes the shell account that hosts allovertheplace.ca, the shell account that runs my primary website, the root shell account on one of my servers I'm currently running updates on, etc. Gone are the days when you begged someone for a shell account just so you can have access to IRC. Although, I could use any one of my current accounts for that too.
@Bruce @tinygirl @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @mcourcel Well, you're in approximately 1/3 good news territory. IRC is still around. Including all the major networks. They're even still developing mIRC, the main client for Windows IRC access.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @Bruce @mcourcel Just wanted to briefly hijack this conversation to say how much I'm enjoying this little trip down memory lane.
@DavidGoldfield @Lisasali @nycki96 @mcourcel I love these memory lane things. It helps Nick remember just how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly old I am.
@Bruce @Lisasali @nycki96 @mcourcel I feel the same way when I talk to people like my step-father-in-law, who remembered using computers going back to the 1960s, if not the 1950s. I think learning history is important, to learn where we came from and how we got here.
@mcourcel @Bruce @DavidGoldfield I drvoe one once. Speaking of fathers and fond memories, my dad had a small one and I drove it. He sat next to me and directed me. That was one of the fondest memories I have. I even drove it across the bridge of the creek that was on our property.
@nycki96 @mcourcel @DavidGoldfield My dad let me drive everything. Garden tractor to bif farm tractor, combine, pickup truck (once even with a bunch of kids in the back), grain truck, family car. In each case he just directed me. Dad wanted me to experience verything I possibly could. Mom wasn't so keen on that, but that was one of the example of a good thing about a patriarch. One of the few times Mom got vetoed.
@Bruce @mcourcel @DavidGoldfield Yeah same with my mom. the last time I was there, this family friend had a motorcycle. I had never ridden on the back of one before. I wanted to. I started to get a little anxious about it, and my mom was like don't do it. My dad was like, if this is on your bucket list, you'll regret it if you don't and I went for it. He helped me onto it, and man did I have the most fun taking that ride! I said I wanted to do it again, after I came back here and he was gone, but my mom keeps saying it's not happening, although, if the guy came here to this apartment with it she'd never know and she really doesn't have a say.
@technolass @Bruce @nycki96 Because of both its historic value and who gave it to Bruce, along with the sacrifices which were made to acquire it, I can well understand your unwillingness to part with it. There was so much love behind its acquisition.
@technolass @Bruce @nycki96 I agree, Caroline. It would be one thing if you got that reading machine at a garage sale but we know that you did not. It came from a man who was willing to make incredible sacrifices so that his son would have access to printed material which was otherwise not available at that time. That is so incredibly touching.
@technolass @Bruce @nycki96 I also wanted one of those original reading machines but my dad was not able to afford them at the time. I know I wanted one so badly as a kid. To think that I now have access to several scanning apps, including some which are free, and that pretty much every book that I want to read is accessible is truly mindblowing.
@DavidGoldfield @technolass @nycki96 I'm willing to part with it. My whole family wants me to part with it. Caroline is the lone holdout. And I completely understand her feelings on this too.
@Bruce @technolass @nycki96 Bruce, I never even met your father and you and I have never even met. Unlike Caroline, I have no personal connection with your family. But I'll tell you that if that machine showed up on my doorstep I couldn't part with it, either.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 You could make them bigger or smaller almost right away, in the summer of 88 at least, but like I said, it required that long, drawn-out shifting around of files. After having used the VersaBraille II for a number of years and nothaving had that constraint, I considered this a huge step down.
@Bruce @nycki96 Yep, there were at least two Kurzweil reading machines, possibly a model 3. I was trained on the Model 2 in 1979 and it was quite a machine, costing around 40K. Possibly more.
Take flight with the Monarch, a multiline braille device that renders tactile graphics integrated with braille on the first-of-its-kind 10-line by 32-cell refreshable braille display.
This is a sixteen year old handheld PDA for people with limited vision. We call them note takers. There is no touch screen, in fact there's no screen period....
@DavidGoldfield @munchkinbear @Bruce @nycki96 that guy is an amazing human. Yes, I have a soft spot for my first internet friend. Total accident. Also, I’m weighing in because I smell assistive technology nerd culture happening over here, and I love it. That particular gadget was before my time, but if I ever get my chance to poke it one, you must believe I will. I will go poke poke poke, and hope it doesn’t crash crash crash.
@munchkinbear @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 I keep getting the Monarch and the Mantis mixed up too. So when Nick got mixed up, I was the one who was mixed up.
@mcourcel @Bruce @munchkinbear @DavidGoldfield @nycki96 speaking of old things. got a braille lite 2000 back in the 9th grade. wrote my first ever story on there. it only had a 18 cell display but I loved that thing. it got me through highschool. and the first year of college. long live floppy disk drive. then it was the pacmate. 40 cell display. that for some reason didn't last too long. graduated to a laptop not too long after. but yeah I miss my braille lite.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 But the KPR was the first one intended for individuals. My dad had seen the 1979 one demoed, and that started the dream for him.
@Bruce @nycki96 I forgot that the Millenium models were also using Doubletalk. They came out after I left the company. I nearly bought a used Millenium in the early 2000s but never bought it. It was a nice device, though.
@Bruce @nycki96 Nick, I do work for Blazie Technologies but I also worked for Blazie Engineering from 1991 until 1998, which is how I got my start in this field.
@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 Probably. Someone probably has those update tapes somewhere in a shoebox marked "I'll nevr open this again but I can't bring myself to throwing it out."
@Bruce @nycki96 There may well be people on Mastodon who have working units who might be willing to fire off a quick demo. I actually have a working Bns and a working Braille Lite but I honestly don't have time right now to do a demo.
@nycki96 @DavidGoldfield in 1987/88, I had nothing whatsoever goot to say about the BNS. But by the early nineties, it had become a very viable and brilliant notetaker, though the plugs they used for serial cables are ones I've never seen before or since, and had one broken I have no idea whether I would have been able to find a replacement locally. By the mid-90s I really wanted a BNS, and in 2001 I finally was able to afford a Braille Lite M20. I thought it was so cool that it had a built-in modem in it, but by that time we'd pretty much reached the end of the dial-up era, and I never wound up using that nice 57K modem.
@nycki96 @DavidGoldfield Oh. LOL I overclocked mine. Yeah, that's it, I overclocked it. I had the only one in town. Of course I couldn't connect to anything, but there was the prestige.
@Bruce @DavidGoldfield Oh wow! I wish I would have known you at that time, so you could give me the secret of overclocking, you know, for the prestige. <lol>
@nycki96 @DavidGoldfield Oh, the things I could have taught you. I even figured out how to make a laptop computer that consumed no power whatsoever using nothing but a glass of water.
@Bruce @nycki96 This is honestly why we need some sort of wiki to track and archive blindness assistive technology. It really has such a rich history and that history needs to be preserved.
@DavidGoldfield @Bruce @nycki96 I learned about Dennis Clatt AKA Perfect Paul, and I still find it interesting how his voice is essentially immortalized, also, the kid voice was his daughter and Betty is his wife.
David Goldfield
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in reply to Nick's world 🌎 👨🦯 • • •@DavidGoldfield @nycki96 @mcourcel So the secret to fixing a computer so it doesn't usa any power is this, lest anyone think I'm a habitual liar:
1. Fill an ordinary glass with water, and place it next to the laptop.
David Goldfield
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in reply to David Goldfield • • •youtube.com/watch?v=ebK4wX76RZ…
Early Computer Speech Synthesis
YouTubeNicki
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American Printing HouseBruce Toews
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YouTubeThe Evil Chocolate Cookie
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in reply to Martin • • •then it was the pacmate. 40 cell display. that for some reason didn't last too long. graduated to a laptop not too long after. but yeah I miss my braille lite.
David Goldfield
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