[Blindmath] Questions about tools for Math and Science Students

[Susan Jolly]

There's lots of good information on this thread but it may be a bit hard to see the forest for the trees.

One of the most important points made is that a braille display is much more useful if it is hooked up to a personal computer.  So if the person who posted the original question hasn't already done this, this would definitely be the most important thing to work on.  

One advantage is, of course, that one can then read much of the (non-technical) electronic text on the Web instantly on the braille display.

A second advantage, known to most members of this list, is the use of display's translate-off mode for doing both computer programming and math. When you press a key on a standard keyboard and view the resulting braille cell on the braille display, the cell that pops up is the one determined by the computer braille table that is part of the display driver.  In the US, the typical computer braille table is closely related to the Nemeth code.  For example, if you press the key for any digit then the Nemeth cell for that digit pops up on the display.  You also get the correct cells for plus, minus, times, divide, right parenthesis, left parenthesis and a few others.  In other words, learning to use the computer braille table allows you to enter both Nemeth and the ASCII characters needed for programming from a standard keyboard by using the same keys.  You can, of course, also use these same keys for entering print directly or for entering print to be translated automatically to contracted braille. 

It is my impression that most of the braille users on this list use full keyboard typing on a standard keyboard rather than six-key entry no matter whether they are typing print or directly entering braille.

HTH,
SusanJ