[Blindmath] Question about Minitab

[Jonathan Godfrey]

Hello,

Michael is correct in that the current version of Minitab is not as friendly
as previous versions.

I have used Minitab from version 8 (under DOS) to 16 and over that time (17
years) things have got worse.

The dialogue boxes and menus are an absolute nightmare for the new user. I
can get by because I remember the menus from previous versions. Having said
that, I do not choose to use Minitab for anything except talking my students
through things so I'm not actually touching it, they are.

The command language of Minitab is usable with jaws or nvda. The language is
far from natural and the resources for such commands are mostly old (dating
back to the DOS version where we all typed commands out). Most staff working
with Minitab do not know the syntax even though it is automatically
generated as the dialogue boxes are used.


The number of outputs that have been altered from text to graphic in Minitab
is on the rise too. There were ways of generating ASCII graphics for most
things in the past, but this art has been lost in more recent versions.

Should you want an alternative that is superior to EXCEL, I could recommend
R. See
http://r-resources.massey.ac.nz to see what sort of support I offer blind R
users.

I'll put some Excel comments in the reply to Michael.

Jonathan