🚀 go-pugleaf

                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 921

                           Thursday, May 27, 1993

Today's Topics:


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                             gopher and internet
                              borrowing numbers
                                lost in space
                         Re: NEWSPAPERS ON INTERNET
                            Reply to Craig Werner
                          Request for Braille help
                            Re: Federal Register
                         Re: NEWSPAPERS ON INTERNET
                  Windows-Driver for Braille-Reader wanted
             Re: Blind student needs French > English dictionary


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thoughts in the next issue, please send electronic mail to
Bill McGarry at any of the following addresses:


UUCP:       uunet!bunker!wtm
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BITNET:     blindnws@ndsuvm1.bitnet
Fidonet:    The Handicap News BBS (141/420)   1-203-337-1607
            (300/1200/2400 baud, 24 hours)
Compuserve: 73170,1064

                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 337-1518



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Subject: gopher and internet
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)


Very many services that were previously free on gopher are now only
available for a fee.  In my mind and I'm sure only in my mind
this constitutes a violation of the internet itself.  I don't know
why the government should continue to subsidize the internet if businesses
of different types come onto it with restricted access services.
The least the gophers could do is put dollar signs around the items that
involve fees since these are restricted those who haven't already paid
won't waste their time trying to access them and eventually they won't waste
their time trying to access gopher either if this trend
continues.
As far as blind access is concerned I wouldn't waste my time on it.
I can understand cost recovery charges if the providers are otherwise
insolvent but that's as far as I'll go.

What gopher is doing is the equivalent of having GM put a car commercial
on national public radio at no charge to GM.  As for myself I don't intend
to use gopher anymore.  This is unfortunate since its interface for speech
synthesizer purposes is much better than windows but then again else
worse than windows?

<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: borrowing numbers
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)


Borrowing numbers are on the address labels of tapes mailed to you.
I think they're above and to the right of your name on the labels.
Sprintnet does it better.  At least they send you a card with your
access number in braille on it.
Actually your information is computerized but whether you can get access
to those screens is another matter.
Your borrower number is also on envelopes of confirmation letters sent to
you by R.F.B. that confirm your order.

<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: lost in space
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)


I'm using tiny talk 1.45 and soundblaster pro with a.m.i. bios on
a 4 meg machine.
I would be interested to know if anyone else is running into the
computer lost in space after about an hour or two consistently with products
such as this.  If so please write back because I think
we should compare notes since it may be possible to isolate the problem.
If there isn't anyone else having these problems it's likely my motherboard
and that's replaceable by or before this year ends.
I have found out the keyboard isn't responsible for
this problem on my computer since I have another keyboard available
I connected it and the problem still didn't go away.
I'm using tiny talk and smtalker loaded high.

<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: Re: NEWSPAPERS ON INTERNET
From: jchamber@apache.dtcc.edu (Joe Chamberlain)
Organization: Delaware Technical & Community College

>Does anyone out there know of a newspaper or news
>service accessible via InterNet?  I've heard rumors
>of this being possible, but I never been able to

        Some systems have USA TODAY online.  The Cleveland Freenet offers
this.  The Clarinews (sp) newsgroups offer a wide variety of newsgroups
featuring noted writers and columnists.  However, this service is very
expensive and is offered only on a limited number of systems.

        Hope this helps.






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Subject: Reply to Craig Werner
From: HUDSON@msu.edu (Michael Hudson)

In a recent issue, Craig Werner mentioned that he was looking for
opinions on 4-track recorders.  If you were speaking of desktop
models, I recently reviewed all such units I could find and APH's
unit represented the best unit for the following reasons:  1.
seemless integration of all 4-track specific features. 2.  Better
sound Quality than most (others were frequently plagued by a 60 hz
buzz).  3.  With APH, if you accidentally move the variable speed
control during recording, the result is not a messed up recording
as on many others. On the issue of portables, we have had extremely
poor results from the APH handi cassette which is a small hand held
unit!  Stay away from that unit if possible!

Good luck!




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Subject: Request for Braille help
From: wcslinda@ccs.carleton.ca (Linda Stillborn)

[Forwarded by Tom McQueen)

I wonder if someone on this list can help my colleague at Algonquin
College in Ottawa Ontario.  I am not a member of this list, but have
been asked by our "special needs" coordinator to send the follwoing
questions to this list:
1. Does someone have a good resource for braille symbols for
maths/sciences?

2. What software is avialable that can combine graphs and text in
braille?

I (and she) appreicate any assistance on this.  You can send responses
diretly to me -- wcslinda@ccs.carleton.ca.

Thank you,
Linda Stilborn, Algonquin College, Ottawa







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Subject: Re: Federal Register
From: janina@netcom.com (Janina Sajka)
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

Access to disability related extracts from the Federal Register is
included without additional charge in a WIDnet subscription.  We
even group items by type -- rfps, proposed rules, etc -- for your
convenience.

E-Mail me for WIDnet info.

                        Janina Sajka, WIDnet Manager





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Subject: Re: NEWSPAPERS ON INTERNET
From: janina@netcom.com (Janina Sajka)
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

While not a newspaper, Clarinet is probably the best online news
source available Internet.

If you're rich, you can read lots of newspapers through Dialog (and
others).  The San Jose Mercury News has recently begun publishing
on America On Line.  I've been beating them up for this -- seems
they never heard or considered that AOL is inaccessible to blind
users.  Guess they didn't really want to expand their market!

Here's some interesting tid-bits on the Mercury, AOL, and Clarinet:


from netcomsv!decwrl!uunet!looking!grant Tue May 11 19:58:21 PDT 1993

>>Anybody out there on-line to the Mercury as yet?
>
>Not yet. I'm not sure I'd want to unless I couldn't get doorstep
>delivery. Reading a newspaper at 2400 baud sounds awful.
>
>>P.S.  If I choose to stay with it, they want $9.95/mo for the first 5 hours,
>>and ~$3.00/hr after that.  I don't think so.
>
>This is pretty reasonable as online services go. CompuServe is $12.50
>an hour, last I checked. Not even Netcom can match their price for
>low-volume usage. And when you keep in mind that AOL doesn't have as
>much interesting stuff as Usenet to eat up connect time, the price
>starts to look better and better.

ClariNet, UPI news in USENET format, is available locally through Netcom,
Portal, and Spacebbs, or a home subscription can be had for a flat rate of
$15/month.  It's downloaded to your own machine, so the speed with which
you can read it is limited only by your machine speed, or your reading
speed!  Most of our feed sites offer high speed connections for the
downloading.

2400 baud?  Yuck.

>The real problem with America Online is that none of the local aud?ccess
>points are stable enough. My modem doesn't seem to have any trouble
>connecting, but when the AOL software wants to navigate through
>Tymnet or SprintNet or whatever the hell else I'm desperately trying
>at the moment, it chokes. Aggravating no end. I had this problem to a
>much lesser extent in Santa Barbara -- it's gotten so much worse here
>that I'm convinced it's not a problem following my setup.
>--
> Pete Gontier // EC Technology // gurgle@netcom.com
--
Grant Robinson -- ClariNet Communications Corp, Sunnyvale, CA






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Subject: Windows-Driver for Braille-Reader wanted
From: drollinger@elde1.epfl.ch (Adrian Drollinger)

A friend of mine with no access to Internet asked me to
post this:
Does anybody know of the existence/availability of a Windows-
Driver for a Braille-Reader?
If you have heard anything about it, please send e-mail to:
drollinger@elde.epfl.ch or
Adrian.Drollinger@ic.bff.ejpd.arcom.ch

Thanks in advance.
Adrian




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Subject: Re: Blind student needs French > English dictionary
From: jason@merlin.demon.co.uk (Jason Arthurs)
Organization: QED

In article <29227@handicap.news> jason@merlin.demon.co.uk writes:
>>2.    I know he has another hurdle in getting a voice synthesiser
>>      hardware and program that can handle French as well as English
>>      accents; but I am dealing with that as a separate question
>>      addressed to other groups. But if you have an answer to the
>>      synthesiser problem that would be great.
>
>The Dolphin Apollo (a synthesizer which appears to be virtually a UK only used
>product) has the facility to support ROMs for several languages including
>French, German, Spanish and Welsh. Quite how it copes with pronounciation I
>can't say, I have heard Apollo's but not with the additional ROMs.
>
>If you need any more information just mail me.

I'm quoting myself here but I've been in contact with the suppliers today and
the Dolphin Apollo has ROMs for over 30 (yes thirty) languages. The only
problem currently is there is no way of having -both- speech ROMs accessible
simultaneously, there are however workaround ways of making this happen.

--
Regards,
Jason Arthurs,

"CAT (noun). A soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked
             when things go wrong in the domestic circle".




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                 End of Issue # 921 of the Blind News Digest

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