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                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 1129

                           Tuesday, March 07, 1995

Today's Topics:


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                           Braille Books in French
         $65.0 Million Grant Program To Increase Access to Internet
                         Brailler for a young child?
                Re: CD ROM's suitable with access devices...
                      TELIX 3.22 / ScreenReader for DOS
                           Microsoft letter to MCB
                            Pointers for eye help
                               blind/dreaming
                    Re: Long essay about SGML, etc. (fwd)
                         Blind friend needs help!!!


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                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 926-6187



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Subject: Braille Books in French
From: hyde_david@oslmac.osl.or.gov (HYDE David)

BRAILLE BOOKS INFrenchJe pense que vous les trouve dans the Canadianne
National Instutute for the Blind.  Essaye La Biblioteque Du Louis
Braille en Paris ausi.  Vou pouvez retrever l*information dan LOCIS par
l*internet.

You can find them through the Canadian National Institue for the Blind,
or the Louis Braille Library in Paris.  You can find information about
what is out there through LOCIs on the internet.



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Subject: $65.0 Million Grant Program To Increase Access to Internet
From: Minchew@act-washdc-po.act.org



     Because there has been discussion of the need for more funds to
     help schools get onto the information super highway the ACT
     staff has collected the following information from public files.
     If you know of a group that could benefit from this type of funding,
     please pass on the following information.

     Feel free to distribute or forward to other relevant lists.

     Daniel Minchew
     Director
     ACT * American College Testing
     One Dupont Circle, NW, # 340
     Washington, DC 20036-1170

     202 223-2318 - Telephone
     202 293-2223 - Fax
     minchew@act-act4-po.act.org



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-

     The U. S. Department of Commerce has announced $65.0 million
     in funds available to increase in the United States the use of
     and access to the information superhighway. More details on
     these Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure
     Assistance Program (TIIAP) grants is available by request to

                             tiiap@ntia.doc.gov

     Eligible applicants include school districts, libraries, community
     groups, universities, state and local governments, public safety
     providers, and non-profit organizations.

     About $38.0 million for demonstration projects.
     About $16.0 million for access grants not to exceed $250,000
     About $10.0 million for planning projects.

     Demonstration projects are divided into two categories:
     under $1.0 demonstrations and over $1.0 demonstrations.

     The domains government documents list as most pertinent include:

          SUBJECT CATEGORY GROUPS
          1. K-12 Education
          2. Higher Education
          3. Health/Human Services
          4. Statewide or Local Infrastructure Planning/Public Safety
          5. Community Networking/Library Services/ Arts and Culture
          6. Economic Development/Government and Public Information

          GENERAL GROUPS
          7. Rural Issues
          8. Region-Specific Coordination and Coalition-Building

     To assist applicants the NTIA staff is available at
     202 482-2048, (202 501-5136 - Fax), and regional
     Workshops are planned as follows:

          02-24 - Charleston, SC   Marriott, 803 747-1900
          02-28 - Omaha, NE        Red Lion Hotel, 402 346-7600
          03-02 - Richmond, VA     Richmond Center, 804 783-7300
          03-08 - Portland, OR     Red Lion, 503 281-6111
          03-11 - Albany, NY       Omni, 518 462-6611
          03-17 - Austin, TX       Capital Marriott, 512 478-1111

     Workshop information and registration are available from
     Ms. Palmer at 202 482-2048, <spalmer@ntia.doc.gov>. The
     Workshops will outline grant evaluation procedures, grant
     guidelines, other similar federal grant programs, and will
     include presentations by up to three previous TIIAP grantees
     who will discuss their wining proposals.

     In addition to information from <tiiap@ntia.doc.gov>,
     one can access data electronically as follows:

     To reach the Gopher server, point your Gopher client at
     gopher.ntia.doc.gov and login as <gopher>'.

     To reach the FTP server, FTP to ftp.ntia.doc.gov, login as
     <anonymous>, use your e-mail address as the password, and
     change to the /grantinfo director to find TIIAP files.

     To reach the WWW server, use http://www.ntia.doc.gov to
     reach the NTIA Home Page, and follow the What's New link
     to reach TIIAP information.



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DISCLAIMER: ACT * American College Testing is not affiliated with
the NTIA, and its Washington Office has compiled the above information
in an effort to increase public awareness of the availability of these
federal funds to expand the use of the information superhighway.


------

-

Daniel Minchew
Director
ACT * American College Testing
One Dupont Circle, NW, # 340
Washington, DC 20036-1170

202 223-2318 - Telephone
202 293-2223 - Fax
minchew@act-act4-po.act.org



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Subject: Brailler for a young child?
From: Maxsdad@aol.com

I am the mother of a blind child, almost 2 years old and would like to start
receiving Blind News.  My brother Mike has been getting them and sending them
to my mom for me.  Now I am on AOL and can be reached directly at
MAXSDAD@AOL.COM.  Thank you.  I look forward to receiving these and learning
more about technology for the blind.  I know they will begin braille with my
son in the next year or two and I am not sure if a brailler is the way to go
or if we should just start him on a computer.  Any advice??  Thanks again.



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Subject: Re: CD ROM's suitable with access devices...
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Organization: OMS Development

KSEVEN (KSEVEN@delphi.com) wrote:
: Index Number: 35618

: The reader called Tiny Talk is available from
: OHMS Development
: 1921 Highland Ave.
: Wilmette, IL 60091
: 708-251-5787

We've moved: the address is now 610-B Forest Ave., same city state and
zip.  We also have a toll-free number for the US and Canada:
800-831-0272.  The 708 number is still available for customers outside
the US and Canada.  BTW, it's "OMS."



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Subject: TELIX 3.22 / ScreenReader for DOS
From: madsen@inet.uni-c.dk (Michael Madsen)

Does anyone know a profile for ScreenReader (DOS version), that works
with TELIX 3.22 or alternatively ProCom (DOS) on the WWW/Internet and
the other internet services?

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Michael



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Subject: Microsoft letter to MCB
From: senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov (Mark J. Senk WB3CAI)



        Information, like love, is worth little until you share it with someone.
Mark Senk       (412) 892-6513  senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov
U.S. Bureau of Mines    Pittsburgh, PA  15236

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 07:23:33 -0600
from: Mark J. Senk WB3CAI <senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov>
To: Multiple recipients of list <uaccess_l@trace.wisc.edu>
subject: Microsoft letter to MCB (fwd)

This is from the NFB R&D mailing list.


        Information, like love, is worth little until you share it with someone.
Mark Senk       (412) 892-6513  senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov
U.S. Bureau of Mines    Pittsburgh, PA  15236

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 20:53:44 -0800
from: DAVID ANDREWS <da0011@epfl2.epflbalto.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nfb-rd@lothlorien.nfbcal.org>
subject: Microsoft letter to MCB

I thought that this letter might interest you,
especially those of you who attended last Saturday's
meeting.

David Andrews

With the permission of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, I
am sharing the following letter it received last week from
Microsoft Corporation.

Jamal Mazrui
jamal@ksgdfs.harvard.edu

-------------------------

February 13, 1995

Commissioner Charles Crawford
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Commission for the Blind
88 Kingston Street
Boston MA 02111-2227

Dear Commissioner Crawford:

Thank you for participation in the recent conference call between
Microsoft, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the National
Council on Disability, the American Foundation for the Blind and
other key individuals involved with accessibility. I have
received a summary of the conference call and would like to follow
up with a letter confirming our commitment to making computing
easier for everyone, including individuals with
disabilities.

As explained by my team handling accessibility, Microsoft is
totally committed to ensuring we do our best to address
accessibility issues with Windows 95. Specifically, we are
working on the following product related items:

To ship before or at the same time as Windows 95:

o    The necessary APIs and libraries to allow ISVs to develop
 high quality screen readers.

o    Windows 95 documentation in an accessible format (compressed
    ASCII text).

To ship as soon as possible after Windows 95:

o    A set of utilities, including a screen enlarger, tutorial
 for blind users, on-screen keyboard, and Dvorak single-     handed
keyboard.

Work being developed for future Windows releases:

o    Capability to turn text to speech, and use voice to command
   a computer.

o    Support for OLE Accessibility mechanism for providing high-
  level information to accessibility aids.

In addition, we are seriously investigating developing a standard
off-screen model, from which ISVs can then create their own blind
access utilities with less work, greater robustness and fewer
system dependencies. You will hear more from us on this over the
coming months.

We are continuing to staff up our team, including adding
individuals with disabilities, as well as programmers with
extensive and successful experience developing state of the art
accessibility aids.

As you know from conversations with my accessibility team, we are
also working hard to ensure we thoroughly understand all the issues
surrounding accessibility. We are planning on the following support
activities:

o    Issue a Microsoft Corporate Accessibility Policy to ensure
  the entire company, not just the Personal Systems Division,
is fully chartered to address accessibility.

o    Create an Accessibility Advisory Council, in conjunction
with the National Council on Disability. This council will
include representatives from major disability organizations      to
ensure we thoroughly understand the needs of disabled      people.

o    Publish our draft APIs and hold an ISV accessibility summit
   by April 15, 1995.

o    Create an on-line forum for both developers and consumers
 with disabilities alike so we have a direct line of
     communication in place.

o    Develop an internal research team, bringing in computer
users with disabilities to conduct thorough usability tests      as
Windows 95 accessibility features get developed.

o    Investigate the feasibility of enhancing our existing
     accessibility guidelines, in partnership with accessibility
   ISVs and consumers with disabilities, to form an
     "accessibility standard" with measurable evaluation
     criteria.

As you can see, we're moving forward with a clear focus on
ensuing Windows 95, and all of Microsoft, addresses accessibility
issues in the most efficient manner possible. I would like to
personally meet with you and your staff so we can have a chance to
discuss accessibility in more detail. A member of my
accessibility team will contact you shortly about arranging a
mutually convenient time to meet.

Sincerely,


Brad A. Silverberg
Senior Vice President
Personal Systems Division

CC:  William H. Gates, Microsoft Corporation







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Subject: Pointers for eye help
From: cjd@osf.org (Chris Doherty)

Hi

My apologies if your not the right people to answer this.

My problem is that of retinal degeneration.  My retina's
are cracking and I'm close to being legally blind.  What I
would like to do to prepare for this by putting together a
PC that will be configured with software and hardware for
the visually impared.

Can you point me to hardware and software packages for
speech synthesis and maybe screen enlargers and the like?


        Thanks

           -Chris

Chris Doherty
(617)621-7396 (w)
(617)933-2958 (h)



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Subject: blind/dreaming
From: fcioppa@ccs.carleton.ca (Frank Cioppa)
Organization: Carleton University


I am a graduate student at Carleton University in Ottawa doing
research on dreaming, and I am trying to find information on the
dreaming of the blind (primarily, but not exclusively, congenital).
I would appreciate any help I can receive.  This could involve
bibliography, references, etc. - but also actual accounts, either on
dream content or on dream structure and patterns.

It is important to note that I am not blind myself and therefore need
expert help. I can be reached either by posting or by direct email
(fcioppa@ccs.carleton.ca).

                Thank you in advance,

                Frank Cioppa
                Ottawa, Ontario
                (613) 746-9415


------


Carleton University

Email address: fcioppa@ccs.carleton.ca


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Subject: Re: Long essay about SGML, etc. (fwd)
From: senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov (Mark J. Senk WB3CAI)



        Information, like love, is worth little until you share it with someone.
Mark Senk       (412) 892-6513  senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov
U.S. Bureau of Mines    Pittsburgh, PA  15236

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 13:09:51 -0500 (EST)
from: Mark J. Senk WB3CAI <senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov>
To: wacwimtbb-l@netcom.com
subject: Re: Long essay about SGML, etc. (fwd)

I was interested in many of the books described on the website of
O'Reilly and Associates ( http://www.ora.com )  and was asking about
electronic text versions of these.  They are planning on-line versions
and will probably use the docbook dtd (document type definition) which is
used by many computer firms for their documentation.  I was hoping this
might be compatible with the Book Manager reader reader and format which
is being used by Recording for the Blind.  Read on to learn more.
-- Mark


        Information, like love, is worth little until you share it with someone.
Mark Senk       (412) 892-6513  senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov
U.S. Bureau of Mines    Pittsburgh, PA  15236

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 08:47:14 PST
from: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
To: "Mark J. Senk WB3CAI" <senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov>
Cc: terry@rock.west.ora.com
subject: Re: Long essay about SGML, etc. (fwd)

| I'm still a bit green.  Is doc book something like IBM's book manager?

Docbook is an SGML DTD; Bookmanager uses IBM's Bookmaster format,
which is an application of GML (the previous version of document
markup language to SGML).  There's no way to get from SGML into
Bookmanager (until IBM revises the product, which they intend to
do sometime) unless you want to translate Docbook into Bookmaster.
I don't have tools to do that myself.

SGML is the Standard Generalized Markup Language, ISO 8879. A
good place to start for info on SGML is
        http://www.sil.org/sgml/sgml.html

An SGML-based approach to rendering docs for the print-impaired
is to modify the DTD to use "fixed attributes" established by
ICADD, the International Committee on Accessible Document Design.
HTML 2.0 has such attributes, and you can send an HTML 2.0 doc
to a service at UCLA and get back Braille (this is just an
experimental project, but it demonstrates what's possible with
this approach).  For info on ICADD:
        gopher://gopher.mic.ucla.edu:4334/11/ICADD/info
and for the service mentioned
        http://www.ucla.edu/ICADD/html2icadd-form.html

We will be installing ICADD fixed attributes in Docbook, but
some tweaking of the ICADD attribute set may be necessary,
and the Committee is working on that.  Once that work is done,
you should be able to convert our (as yet nonexistant) online
books to Braille automatically.

Hope this helps.


--
Terry Allen  (terry@ora.com)   O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Editor, Digital Media Group    101 Morris St.
                               Sebastopol, Calif., 95472
occasional column at:  http://gnn.com/meta/imedia/webworks/allen/

A Davenport Group sponsor.  For information on the Davenport
  Group see ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/davenport/README.html
        or  http://www.ora.com/davenport/README.html





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Subject: Blind friend needs help!!!
From: buckp@comtch.iea.com (Buck Poe)
Organization: CompuTech, Spokane WA

I am in need of information regarding computer technologies for the
blind. I have a friend who recently went blind due to illness. CRT,
Voice, or any other PC based info would be helpful.

Thank You, Buck Poe
           buckp@comtch.iea.com




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                 End of Issue # 1129 of the Blind News Digest

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