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-------BIG VIDEO FONTS UNDER DOS
 
 Charles Angelich said to Phil Marlowe
 
PM> For a moment there I thought you were saying that you could
PM> have enlarged video fonts (like True-Type) under DOS. That
PM> would be =real= handy for my low-vision group, and would
PM> allow them to read ebooks (like those available via
PM> Gutenberg) on something as lowly as a 386 -- the only
PM> equipment we have plenty of. I thought there was a text
PM> editor or word processor from the DOS era that did have
PM> large fonts, but everyone tells me this is not possible,
PM> and I have not been able to track it or anything like it
PM> down. (If anyone does know of such a beast, please let me
PM> know.)
 
> (Waving hand in the air) I know! I know!
 
  [g]
 
> It's called W31 and will execute on a '386 with
> as little as 4 meg of memory.
> Then use Wordpad and larger fonts.
 
  Not sure exactly what you have in mind here.
 In general Windows unfortunately is a major
 stumbling block here. While it may work for a
 very few it won't for the huge majority. A few
 problems -- always remembering that these are low
 vision people who will be using it (some of whom
 are legally blind) and many not even familiar
 with computers. 1. I myself can barely make out
 some of the miniscule type in Windows, so when
 these low vision folk come to a dialog box or
 need to invoke help or whatever, and they
 encounter what is for them literally unreadable
 type, they are forced to give up. 2. They hate
 the mouse. All in all Windows is a major
 frustration to them. Here's an example of what
 would be a =mild= attitude to Windows here.
 
 Quoting:
 "Utterly useless, eyesores, DOS programs are
 far, better. No useles scroll bars, tool bars,
 clutter, buttons, junk, eye hurting fonts. I
 played for months with these cretinous programs
 trying to make them work for me, but kept going
 back to DOS...."
 
> With a little effort you could put wordpad.exe
> into PeepHole, my W31 on a diskette, to replace
> notepad.exe and not even need hard drives in the
> machines.
 
  I don't quite follow. And what's a little
 effort?  [You're speaking to a barely
 technologically literate person here.] I've
 noticed you mentioning PeepHole before and it
 sounds intriguing; W31 on a diskette! Let me
 think about this. I'll have to get back to you.
 
 The machines we have, however, are substantial
 enough; that's not really the problem. We just
 need a simple way of getting to True Type or some
 equivalent.
 
 I was just about to write that decent monitors
 [which we can't afford] are also a major problem
 but I really think as far as these people are
 concerned that it's mainly that damn Windows.
 
 Here's a discussion that I've been following on
 sci.med.vision that might give you some inkling
 of what I'm trying to explain. Although these are
 normally sighted people complaining, it covers
 some of the bases we have to deal with. See if
 you can pick the villain. Needless to say, most
 of the solutions are out of our price range.
 
 Quoting:
 
 Subject: Nearsightedness and LCD Monitors
 Newsgroups: sci.med.vision
 Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2003 04:15:19 GMT
 
 === From: "Alex R" 
 I'm planning to upgrade my PC's monitor, and I'm
 trying to decide between a nice 19" CRT and a
 low-end 17" LCD. My main criterion will be which
 type of monitor, if any, will go more toward
 slowing the progression of my nearsightedness. If
 there is no known difference between the effects
 of a CRT and an LCD on nearsightedness, I'd like
 to save some cash and get the CRT. My recent
 search of this group's archive showed that it has
 not been proven whether using a monitor causes
 nearsightedness, but I'd like any insight that
 anyone can offer. Alex

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