On 12 Feb 98 02:35pm, Diane Levesque wrote to Mike Sprague:
 DL> to be "downward compatable" such that even people who still use
 DL> lCommie64's wouldn't feel isolated.  When it comes to SW and radio
 DL> amateur affairs, this is particularly important with blind hams and SWLs
 DL> who by an large rely entirely on Commie 64s for communications (voice
 DL> and braille interface) online and on the air (packet).
Diane,
Not to nit-pick, but I do feel it important to not spread
misinformation about the group my BBS has specialized in for the
past 10 years!  That is, any use of the Commodore 64 with speech
was enjoyed by but a handfull of blind individuals, primarily
prior to the entrance of DOS speech in the mid 80's and even then
only as an alternative to the more common Apple speech systems!
To the best of my knowledge, refreshable braille displays never
existed for anything but Dos and/or Windows machines, although
there are proprietary braille devices that can be used as a dumb
or VT100 compatible terminal.
The overwhelming number of blind people still participating in
Fidonet do so via off-line reading systems such as Xpress and
Blue Wave, both of which contain a "speech friendly interface"
option which make them particularly suited to our screen access
devices!  Likewise, those blind Hams and/or SWLers I know, even
more than the typical blind computer users in general, keep up
with the latest in the ways of both hardware and adaptive
software, so maintaining minimal message size and topic adherance
is no more an issue for us than anyone else in these Fidonet
echos!  Frankly, I haven't been bothered one bit by the posting
of the Sweden Calling DXers in this echo, as even though I
haven't read one of them, skipping them has been as easy as
falling off a log, and if there is another blind person out there
who can't say the same thing, I'd like to hear from them!  Sorry,
but I simply don't agree with you or my old friend Mike on this
one, as it simply isn't any big deal, even to those of us who are
blind!
                                        Willie
 
... BlinkTalk - the Electronic Voice of the Blind!
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