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                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 1026

                           Monday, March 14, 1994

Today's Topics:


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           Announcing: InfoUCLA in ICADD Format, with Gopher Demo
                        Tupperware Catalog in Braille
                            Help for blind friend
                          MacUser Magazine on Tape
                                Reader wanted
                Re: Radio Shack misses the blind so often...
                    radio shack misses the blind so often
                Re: Radio Shack misses the blind so often...
                      Re: Name of the Handicap Digest?
                          voice software for linux


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                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 926-6187



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Subject: Announcing: InfoUCLA in ICADD Format, with Gopher Demo
From: hilton-chalfen@MIC.UCLA.EDU (Danny Hilton-Chalfen)

Greetings,

I'm happy to announce a new service at UCLA that makes online information
more accessible to people with print impairment, and a gopher server that
demonstrates how it works: InfoUCLA in ICADD format.

UCLA's campus wide information system (CWIS) is called InfoUCLA.  Like
other universities' CWIS's, InfoUCLA contains many documents of interest to
the campus community, from the schedule of classes to the bookstore
inventory to the campus directory. This in itself is a great thing for
everyone on campus, but an especially wonderful thing for people who have
never seen such information in any form due to disability.  As online
information available in text, or ASCII, format, this information is
accessible to people with print impairment through adaptive computing
technologies.

But the world of online information is moving beyond ASCII.  ASCII cannot
convey much important information about the structure and content of
documents using presentation conventions, like italics, boldfacing, tables,
and other important document features that print readers take for granted.
SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language, ISO 8879) is an international
document standard that enables you to capture and preserve the important
structure and context of the information and allow for easy down
translations into many applications (your favorite word processor, for
example, or Gopher or World Wide Web) on many platforms (the Mac, PC, Unix
worstation, mainframe).

Sighted computer users will have access to this increasingly rich world of
online text.  Will print impaired users?  Information in InfoUCLA is now
being converted into SGML.  This will enable campus wide information to be
directly translated into many applications and platforms.  One of these is
the ICADD (International Committee on Accessible Document Design, ISO
12083) document standard, an implementation of SGML, designed to enable
print-impaired readers to have equal access to the same document features
as their non-disabled peers.  An electronic document that has been
formatted with the ICADD standard can be converted into braille, large
print or voice output by an application designed to accept ICADD files.

At UCLA we have recently converted our first InfoUCLA data set into ICADD:
GRAPES, the Graduate and Postdoctoral Exramural Support data base.  When
anyone at UCLA looks up GRAPES on InfoUCLA, they can now view it either as
a text document or as an ICADD document.  This is the model for the
conversion of all future information on InfoUCLA.

We have set up a gopher demonstration of this document conversion process
so you can follow the whole procedure.  You will find it on the
Disabilities and Computing Program Gopher Server on InfoUCLA.  From your
gopher client, select UCLA, go to Other UCLA Gopher Servers, select the
Disabilities and Computing Program Gopher Server, then chose the folder
"InfoUCLA Access for People with Print Impairments."  There you will find a
document "About InfoUCLA Access for People with Print Impairments."  This
file will guide you through the demonstration.

In the demo you will first see a sample GRAPES document as raw data, then
follow it as it is converted into SGML, then ICADD, then into Grade II
Braille (via Mega Dots, a braille translation program designed to accept
ICADD files). You can print this Grade II file on your brailler to
experience an ICADD formatted braille document first hand.  A simulated
braille file is also available for sighted users (from Mega Dots).  An
ASCII version of the sample Grapes document (from ICADD) is available for
large print and voice output, as there is as yet no large print or screen
reading program that accepts ICADD.

You will also find a folder that repeats this whole procedure using a
portion of the campus directory.  Look at the raw data.  See what a mess it
is!  You'll see why it is so hard to even get online data as "simple
ASCII."  Then look at it after it has gone through the document conversion
process and you'll understand why SGML and ICADD are a superior method to
represent etext for people with print impairment.

InfoUCLA is joint effort of the UCLA Microcomputer Support Office (MSO, a
part of the Office of Academic Computing) and the UCLA Library.  The MSO's
Disabilities and Computing Program (DCP) is a part of the InfoUCLA planning
effort and the InfoUCLA - ICADD project is the result of this
collaboration.  Participants in the InfoUCLA - ICADD project include Jeff
Suttor, Daniel Hilton-Chalfen, Guido Grimaldi, Patrick Burke, Betsy Coles,
and Grant Young. Thanks too to David Holliday of Raised Dot Computing for
his support with Mega Dots.

For more information on the project contact:

Jeff Suttor, UCLA library, JSuttor@Library.UCLA.Edu, 310-825-1206
Daniel Hilton-Chalfen, UCLA Disabilities and Computing Program
hilton-chalfen@mic.ucla.edu, 310-206-7133, TDD: 310-206-5155

Sincerely yours,

Danny

Daniel Hilton-Chalfen, Ph.D.
Coordinator, UCLA Disabilities and Computing Program
hilton-chalfen@mic.ucla.edu




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Subject: Tupperware Catalog in Braille
From: mikef@pacifier.rain.com (Mike Freeman)

[This is from the BLIND-L list]

Hi, all.

Saw the following on NFB's BBS, NFBnet.  Question:  would asking
for the catalog described constitute singing for one's Tupper?


      To:  All                        Message #:  72
    from:  Jesse Tharin               Submitted:  05 Mar 94 20:45:00
 subject:  tupperware                    Status:  Public

I haven't seen this anywhere so here goes. The Tupperware
catalog is now available in Braille. This catalog is
produced by Sun Sounds in Tucson and they say that few
Tupperware sellers know about it. If your Tupperware guy
hasn't a clue, tell him or her to call the factory rep at 1-
800-858-7221 and they'll send out a copy.

Jesse

---
 * Origin: Tucson Prologue - Tucson Arizona USA - 602.322.8014 - (1:300/7)



=-=-=-=-=-=-=

--
Mike Freeman, < K 7 U I J    Internet: mikef@pacifier.rain.com
... Chaste makes waste!





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Subject: Help for blind friend
From: rjohnson@unlinfo.unl.edu (Remos)
Organization: University of Nebraska--Lincoln

I am looking for any information on how my blind friend can use a
computer.  I've seen someone else use what looks like a little,
brail-type keyboard that hooks directly to the printer.  I would
appreciate _any_ information.  Thanks in advance.

Ross Johnson    rjohnson@unlinfo.unl.edu

--
I am user.  Hear me ROAR!!!!




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Subject: MacUser Magazine on Tape
From: DDZ@PSUVM.PSU.EDU (Carolyn Dudas)
Organization: Penn State University

FYI... As an alternative format, the MacUser magazine is available on tape by
contacting:
  Recorded Periodicals
  Mr. John Corrigan
  c/o Associated Services for the Blind
  919 Walnut Street
  Philadelphia, PA  19107
    Phone: (215) 627-0600




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Subject: Reader wanted
From: ai855@freenet.buffalo.edu (Andrew B. King)
Organization: Buffalo Free-Net


I'm looking for a reader for a dyslectic friend.  She wants
something that you can lay a book or journal on and it will
read the text to her.  I was thinking that an AV Mac or even
a PowerMac, a scanner and OCR software would do the trick but
I thought I'd ask here.  Any ideas, or sources of info. I
should pursue?

She has a computer and knows how to use one so a Kurtzweil
sounds like overkill ($5000).  Any help you can give me
would be appreciated.  Please email at the address below.
Thanks in advance.

Andy King
ai855@freenet.buffalo.edu
CFIDS Forum Administrator on...
The Huron Valley Free-Net - Ann Arbor, MI
--




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Subject: Re: Radio Shack misses the blind so often...
From: cgibbs@cc.weber.edu (Chaurie Gibbs)
Organization: Weber State University

In article <31647@handicap.news>, martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu
(Martin McCormick) writes...
>Index Number: 31647
>
>       It is an absolute shame that the electronics industries are doing
>so little to make ordinary consumer electronics useable by blind people.

Hell, try Walking in the Store!  I've been followed around by their
stupid employees like I'm trying to steal their merchandiuse.  And
Try Paying for the damn junk!  They probably go hide behind the
counter and laugh as you stand there and wait to be served.

If anybody knows the head Jackass up at Radio Shack, forward this
letter to him or her.

cgibbs@cc.weber.edu




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Subject: radio shack misses the blind so often
From: dashiell@nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)


The only solution to the electronics industry
problem is for totally blind people to get into the industry
on an entrepenurial level and make products that are primarily
useful to the totally blind and secondarily useful to
the rest of the population.  With enough orders and reasonable
pricing in the beginning (t.s.i. doesn't qualify as an
example) we can make these problems go away permanently.
It should also be possible to add to the number of rich blind people in time
if our community will support the product lines and
help with the selling to the rest of the population.
One thing to avoid is marketing the product as a
blindness related product.  The features should be spelled out
in a way that makes it clear to any blind person that
the product is directly useful to them
as well as to the rest of the population.
If these kind of companies don't happen we'll be complaining about
these same problems well into the next millenium here and elsewhere.

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




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Subject: Re: Radio Shack misses the blind so often...
From: cgibbs@cc.weber.edu (Chaurie Gibbs)
Organization: Weber State University

In article <31647@handicap.news>, martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu
(Martin McCormick) writes...
>Index Number: 31647
>
>       It is an absolute shame that the electronics industries are doing
>so little to make ordinary consumer electronics useable by blind people.
>The industry mantra seems to be "Oh,! I didn't think of that.  Oh well. . ."
>
>       I guess my last post didn't make it here (damn machines!)  I agree with
this statement because I CANNOT go into Radio Shack because I'me ither follwed
around the store like I'm going to swipe something or else they just disappear
(I have partial sight so I see where they hide).

        It's about time that the Blind stand up and tell the big companies off
because if we're to use compouters, then we need to have access to the stuff
like the sighted people.

        If anyone happened to see my original post, I ment what I said about
the jackass CEO of Radio Shack and what he could do with this.

Chaurie At Weber





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Subject: Re: Name of the Handicap Digest?
From: jfaircloth@delphi.com (John Faircloth)
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

Well I have to agree with you. I to am blind, however, If some one
says I am visuially chalenged or impaired, I don't take offense, I
just simply say hey look, it's ok to say someone is blind, being
blind isn't a sin for god'ssake.

Well, I don't want to start a debate, just wanted to responde to your post.

Regards, John





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Subject: voice software for linux
From: guardian@werple.apana.org.au (Nick Allan)
Organization: werple public-access unix, Melbourne


Hi all
I was wondering if anyone could tell me who the person is that is writing
the voice software for linux?  Can someone give me his email address please.

Thanks






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                 End of Issue # 1026 of the Blind News Digest

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