[Blindmath] Crazy question about Braille 'writing'

[Tami Kinney]

Ryan,

There are quite a few refreshable braille displays with braille 
keyboards included these days. Is that what you are talking about?

I'm like you. I would rather have the capability to type in braille as I 
work instead of going from my computer qwerty keyboard to the different 
notation I read with my fingers. Especially for complicated stuff like 
programming and proofing and for math and science. I don't have that 
currently, and I can manage, but when I start adding to my assistive 
tech toolkit some more, I definitely plan to have the built in braille 
keyboard for the display. Well, also, a lot of the new bells and 
whistles displays -- and even some of the more basic -- refreshable 
displays also have some independent capacity  so that you can just use 
the battery and the braille keys to work away from the computer. Yay! No 
need to have a separate super expensive note take for when you are on 
the go!

Or are you talking about a math symbol specific keyboard? I'm not awake 
enough to grasp that concept, or maybe I'm just too ignorant about the 
ins and outs to have anything to add. /smile/

Tami

On 04/21/2012 05:44 PM, Ryan Hemphill wrote:
> Okay, as my subject states, I've got a seemingly crazy/sane question about
> Braille.
>
> Since Braille is composed of 6 to 8 dot 'characters', it would seem logical
> to me that if someone wished to do math by writing out their equation -
> would it not be possible or reasonable to have a hardware device that has 6
> button sets that are the right size for fingers in the same arrangement
> that the user could physically write the Braille characters?  I would see
> this, in my opinion of course, to be very helpful - especially in Math.
>   Some of the best thinking I've done has involved physical (not typing,
> mind you) handwriting.  Is there a device out there that has this
> one-to-one relationship that I'm talking about, and if so, is anyone using
> such a thing for Braille Math?  Granted, I could see it being slower, but
> in a case like Braille Math - slowing down to write it yourself as opposed
> to typing it would make a lot sense.
>
>
> Ryan
>