🚀 go-pugleaf

                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 908

                          Thursday, April 29, 1993

Today's Topics:


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                      Re: larger-type display programs?
                               Re: New $1 Coin
                      Re: Text to Speech for X Windows
                            audible traffic signs
                              braille question
                                  xwindows
                                    sleep
                  request tools info for visually impaired
              communicating with a visually impaired girlfriend
                                   opticon


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                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 337-1518



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Subject: Re: larger-type display programs?
From: wtm@bunker.afd.olivetti.com (Bill McGarry)


Lili Velez writes:
> I'm using WordPerfect 5.1 and I'm wondering if there are any
> shareware programs out there which would give me enlarged type.

I run a ftp site at "handicap.afd.olivetti.com" which contains
only disability-related materials.  There is one directory
called "/pub/large" which contains 25 or 30 screen and
print enlargers.  Some are freeware, some shareware, some are
demos.  Log in as "anonymous" using your e-mail as your password.
The master index is "/pub/index".

Here is the listing for the /pub/large direcotry.

             Screen and Print Enlargers


   The following set of programs were all written
   by Bill Arendt of Hexagon Products.  The files that
   are in ".EXE" format are self-extracting archive files.

 BDIR, BEDIT, BLOOK and BTYPE will all display
       from 10 to 60 characters per line

BDIR2.ZIP      20512 08-28-91  DIR type command in large characters
BEDIT20.ZIP   237465 03-13-91  Large character editor
BEDICT20.ZIP  151890 07-18-91  60,000 word dictionary for BEDIT
BLOOK2.ZIP     24980 08-28-91  Look at ascii files
BTYPE2.ZIP     21270 08-28-91  DOS TYPE command in large characters

 BPOP (also by Bill Arendt) is a TSR (Terminate
 and Stay Resident program) that acts as a software
 magnifying glass.  When needed, BPOP will pop up
 and enlarge any text that is being displayed.

BPOP21.ZIP     56868 08-28-91  Pop up magnifying glass

     Some other programs to enlarge characters either on
      the screen or on the printer

20-20.ZIP      96298 10-31-91  Word processor enlarger for use in laptops
BCDEMO.ZIP     55488 08-20-90  BigCalc, which works with large characters
                               or with braille or with speech
BIG10.ZIP      33255 04-09-91  Enlarger designed for Lotus 1 2 3
BIG26.ZIP     142299 10-04-90  The BIG utilities-BIG, BIGMONE & TYPER, a
                               typing tutor
BIGCAL.ZIP     37456 03-05-90  Print large type calendar
BIGECHO.ZIP     4823 06-30-89  Print large letters in batch files
BIGPRINT.ZIP   22722 01-08-90  Program to print large letters
BIGT.ZIP        4577 09-09-91  BigT - CGA TSR text enlarger
BIG-TEXT.ZIP   44375 03-30-89  Enlarges text files to printer or screen
BIGTIMER.ZIP   16073 02-05-90  Large character timer
CGACLK2.ZIP    26419 10-03-90  Large letter clock/timer/stop watch (CGA)
HVIEW.ZIP      84598 10-10-90  Demo of HandiVIEW screen magnifier (Vers 2.0)
IN-FOCUS.ZIP   49686 07-20-91  Demo of In-focus screen magnifier
LARGE.ZIP      34647 06-30-89  Another program to enlarge text on screen
LENS101.ZIP     9221 03-19-92  Screen enlarger for Windows (1 to 20 times)
LETENLRG.ZIP   36415 02-07-90  Put large characters into a file
LPD-DELX.ZIP   78163 07-20-91  Demo of LP-Dos enlarger
MAGAN.ZIP      12593 02-09-90  One more pop up text enlarger
MAGH10.ZIP     41476 09-26-90  Text enlarger for a Hercules graphics card
MAGCD130.ZIP  164599 02-28-93  Deluxe version demo of MAGIC magnifier
OLLY09.ZIP     99381 01-19-93  Large font offline QWK reader
RELIEF.ZIP     65580 04-06-91  Demo of large letter word processor
VERBVIEW.ZIP   27807 02-06-90  And yet another text enlarger
VUDEMO.ZIP     31439 07-10-91  Large letter file reader
WINSPY2.ZIP    10301 07-03-91  Screen enlarger within Windows 3.0
ZOOMSHAR.ZIP   43240 04-09-91  Mouse based text enlarger
ZOOMTEXT.ZIP   83237 07-18-91  Versatile screen enlarger (demo)

                                Bill McGarry
                                (203) 926-6187

UUCP:       {oliveb, uunet}!bunker!wtm
INTERNET:   wtm@bunker.shel.isc-br.com   BITNET:     l-hcap@ndsuvm1.bitnet
            (300 to 14400 baud, 24 hours)
NVTel:      BillSysop                    Compuserve: 73170,1064




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Subject: Re: New $1 Coin
From: thorntn@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Duncan Thornton)
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

In <28846@handicap.news> mikef@pacifier.rain.com (Mike Freeman) writes:

>Index Number: 28846

>Hello, Jeff.

>I agree with you that a $1 coin isn't likely to fly in the U.S.
>If nothing else, there'd be too much re-tooling on the part of
>the vending-machine industry required to make them very happy
>about the prospect <g>.

Vending machine companies _love_ the idea of big-denomination
coins... people don't have to hunt around for so much change,
so they're more likely to use them, and they can feasibly start
selling more expensive merchandise, since your won't have to
slide in impracticle numbers of coins to buy something that
costs several dollars.  Until they re-set their machines, they're
not losing business by not working with $1 coins; they don't
accept $1 bills anyway.

 Also, I think that most U.S. citizens
>would resist the change (a) because they like things to remain
>static whenever possible in a changing world; (b) it's been
>tried before with disastrous results (albeit this could have
>been predicted from the design of the Susan B.); (c) because
>most people don't want to carry a lot of heavy change and (d)
>because accepting a dollar coin would be tacit acknowledgement
>that inflation was, in the end, uncontrollable.

The reason the Susan B. didn't work is that they didn't pull the $1
bill from circulation.  Some people don't like the idea of $1 coins -
many people in Canada didn't like using the $1 CDN loonies, but when
there were no $1 bills left, they acclimatized.

I forget what it's called, but there's some principle in economics
that I think also helps explain the Susan B., to the effect that when
two units of currency with the same nominal value are in circulation,
people will tend to hoard the one with the higher intrinsic. I think
economics is mostly hooey, but this is one economic law that seems to
work.

- Duncan


Duncan Thornton          | An odd thought strikes me - we shall receive no
thorntn@ccu.umanitoba.ca |             email in the grave.



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Subject: Re: Text to Speech for X Windows
From: person@plains.NoDak.edu (Brett Person)
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network


In my spare time I writting a driver for X.  I know that IBM is
supposed to have screen reader for AIX.  I'd assume that that would
handle X on some level, maybe.

I'm working primarily in Linux and have a basic screen reading
package working for it.  It will do some simple things in X, but
nothing I'd write home about yet.  I'm hoping to put out an alpha
version of my stuff for Linux sometime maybe in June or July.  I'm
thinking July 15- which happens to be my birthday- and this would
be a nice birthday present to give myself.

Drop me a note if any of you are interested.  I'm working with real
limited resources. Old, slow machine, real limited disk space that
has to contain both OS/2 and Linux as well as the important source
code.  The machine also contains a Gravis Ultrasound sound card,
and may  soon contain a Sound Blaster Pro as well. So I'll probably
provide speech output to those two cards as well as the serial ports.

--
Brett Person
Guest Account
North Dakota State University
person@plains.nodak.edu || person@plains.bitnet




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Subject: audible traffic signs
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)


I'm not in the least concerned with failure to hire.  By 2,000 this
country will be into a labor shortage that's going to be around for
probably a generation.  Why do you think the A.D.A. got passed?
Given that not all imigrants can or will speak english well enough
to hold down employment and the women have already been absorbed
back into the labor pool as well as other minorities of color it
then became the handicapped community's turn to be "welcomed in" by
a law and what are going to be some hard economic adjustments for
many employers.  The day of the drill sergeant is fast coming to an
end and it's not just because they're stopping live rounds.  When
the labor shortage comes down they'll be history.

In looking at future trends I can reasonably predict that when the
handicapped community is no longer needed the same thing will
happen to it that happened to women after both world wars.
Starting with 2000 and for probably a generation beyond we'll have
the war so it's best to make of it what we can while we can.

If these views sound slightly cynical, well i read history and
remember a little too.

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




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Subject: braille question
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)

The Braille Authority Of North America is the body that writes the
rules.  They're located in Washington, DC.  I would suspect very
many are not braille readers and even more of them never cracked a
code in their lives.  Cryptographers know as much about a language
as linguists since they have to be concerned with linguistics and
language usage in written form.  This explains why Grade 2 is only
a 12% savings over Grade 1.  It wasn't done right in the first
place and until the B.A.N.A. is properly staffed it never will be
done right in the future.

<dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil>
j. DaShiell
Naval Air Warfare Center
Aircraft Division Warminster
Street and Jacksonville Roads
Warminster, PA   18974-5000
(215)-441-2229




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


To my knowledge if you insist on xwindows you'll have to continue
with your current solution for the foreseeable future.  However, if
you'd like to try linux it should soon be speech synthesizer
supportive in the near future.  Don't know what synthesizers and
what software yet though.

Stay tuned.

<dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil>
j. DaShiell
Naval Air Warfare Center
Aircraft Division Warminster
Street and Jacksonville Roads
Warminster, PA   18974-5000
(215)-441-2229




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


about the only time I have dreams is after having wiped out a good
pizza with lots of olives and vegies on it.
These dreams are vivid enough for me to remember.
The rest of the time I remember nothing.

<dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil>
j. DaShiell
Naval Air Warfare Center
Aircraft Division Warminster
Street and Jacksonville Roads
Warminster, PA   18974-5000
(215)-441-2229




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Subject: request tools info for visually impaired
From: lizh@StarConn.com (Liz Heller)
Organization: Starnet-Public Access UNIX--Los Altos, CA  415-949-3133

[Note from Bill McGarry: see my reply in the next few articles]

A friend of mine who is visually impaired has heard of an archive
of tools for visually and other handicapped people, somewhere on the
net.  Can anyone tell me where that resides, and how to request a
catalog?  Thank you.

Liz
lizh@starconn.com





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Subject: communicating with a visually impaired girlfriend
From: BGSPOH00@ukcc.uky.edu (Bryan Spohn)


Can anyone help me (and my girlfriend) communicate via e-mail? She
ha s a computer system (IBM clone-based) that helps her do college
homework assign ments. How can she communicate with me via e-mail?
This system is much cheaper than stamped mail or phone calls. Do
both of us need modems? I am going to buy a 486DX-50 clone later
this year. Thanks for your time.

                                                            Bryan G. Spohn
                                                            Lexington, Ky.




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Subject: opticon
From: dperez@eis.calstate.edu (David (Rusty) Perez)
Organization: Calif State Univ/Electronic Information Services

I'm a former opticon user who got frustrated with learning slow.
Now I have an interest and motovation to take it up again. I'm
looking for an opticon. I'm also curiuos if any one knows the
average life of a new opticon. I'm not sure whether it would be
judicious of me to by a used one or spend more money and be
rewarded with a longer opticon lifetime.  If you have any thoughts
on the matter please E-mail me.  As a side-note, I'm currently
working on my teaching credential. I plan on teaching English,
Spanish,and literature on the high school level. If you are a blind
teacher and have any suggestions, on any thing, that have helped
you in the class room please e-mail me as well. I have decided to
use some method to project my computer screen on a large pulldown
screen in class. I will also be using an OCR system to grade some
papers and an opticon to grade others. I use speech and braille and
am confortablein both mediums.

If you have any thoughts please feel free to share them.
Thanks!
Rusty


--
I refuse to disclaim anything!
Anything and everything I say is a product of  everything and everyone I
have ever been  associated with
David (Rusty) Perez (dperez@eis.calstate.edu)
. "Oh wind, if winter comes, can spring be far
behind?" -- Shelley




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                 End of Issue # 908 of the Blind News Digest

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