[Blindmath] Nemeth questions and results of Using the Perkins

Wed Feb 8 23:03:24 UTC 2012

Hi,
This is more towards programming than math - although math is 
involved here:
In order for a braille display (rather, a braille terminal) to 
output a braille character, the driver (software) needs to 
receive the character information.  Here, I refer to the screen 
reader with relevant braille rules or tables.  Without ways of 
representing math symbols in braille format (one or two cells), 
you cannot get Nemeth on a braille display.  There is a way to 
type Nemeth on a BrailleNote Apex (at least in braille files) 
because there is a Nemeth braille table and grade availible.
As for symbols and what not, I don't know for certaintly, but 
Nemeth shows up a lot in scientific notations such as in 
chemistry and higher math such as calculus.  But, as you said, 
there are some characters which correspnds to both Nemeth and 
ASCII braille such as plus and letter symbols.
As for braille shortcuts with ASCII computer braille, I feel you, 
but there is a reasonable explanation: braille character codes, 
math symbols and ASCII are now grouped under Unicode.  For 
instance, in order to display the ASCII equals sign (dots 
1-2-3-4-5-6), the braille display driver needs to know the ASCII 
value of equals sign and consult a braille table to see which 
braille code (in Unicode) is assigned to this character.  This is 
a one-to-one correspondence because you can display up to two to 
the n number of ASCII characters using two to the n number of 
braille dots, hence:
2~1 = 2 (either up or down dot).
2~6 = 64 (including blank space, which Unicode has a code for 
it).
2~8 = 256 (this includes all possible ASCII characters such as 
control characters, uppercase symbols and such).
If we extend this argument and say that we wish to represent a 
Unicode character (such as some math symbols) using two or more 
braille characters.  Then we can have up to:
(2~6)*(2~6) = 2~12 = 4096 (enouch to represent a lot of symbols 
involving integrals).
(2~8)*(2~8) = 2~16 = 65536 (Covering all possible Unicode 
characters in existence today).  So, as you can see, from the 
ASCII example, each braille dot combination is indeed represented 
in Unicode, and each dot pattern in Unicode table for braille 
code corresponds to one ASCII symbol.
The above statement on one-to-one corresponence works for one 
letter braille symbols.  But some Nemeth symbols require two or 
more braille dot patterns to represent, and we run into a 
problem: how would a machine (in this case, the software which 
controls the braille display) know which character should be 
displayed using one, two or three characters? One way of solving 
it is using smarter "parsers" (file readers) that, as soon as 
first character of a two-letter symbol has been entered, tries to 
guess which one the user would enter next.  For instance, if a 
user enters dot 4, the software would think, "hmmm, does the 
student wish to enter cent sign or dollar sign?" If the user 
types s, then the software would display a dollar sign to the 
braille display (I gave an example of typing, but it applies to 
reading these symbols with a braille display).  Another aprroach 
(a slight variant algorithm from above) is for the software to 
evaluate two-letter symbols after seeing a space, newline or 
other terminator symbol.
As to how to express this in JavaScript or any kind of language, 
I think we should talk about it in a more programming forum.
Sorry for all the rants.  Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Joseph
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Humphreys <brh at opticinspiration.org
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics 
<blindmath at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:38:41 -0500
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Nemeth questions and results of Using 
the Perkins

Susan,

As I understood from a web document I believe you posted 
recently,
Nemeth and computer ASCII are pretty compatible.

Why wouldn't a braille display work with Nemeth?

Also, another thing I'm not clear on with the Nemeth is the 
strange
representation for =, (, ).  Why is it that those need to be 
coded as
dot k etc when they could be represented as their actual braille 
characters?

Finally, as long as greek letters are not used, what is the 
benefit
of Nemeth over computer ASCII?  All the normal expressions like a 
+
b >= (c^2) / d (such as you might write in Javascript) seem easy
enough to produce in computer ASCII.
Please forgive my ignorance; I'm trying to figure this out at
40-something without the benefit of a TVI or a 6-year-old's 
spongy brain.

Thank you

Ben

At 03:43 PM 2/8/2012, you wrote:
It can, but the math will not appear in Nemeth code if this is 
what you
want.

Sharon

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Julian, Kate
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 1:08 PM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Results of Using the Perkins

I didn't know the bn can act as a display from the computer, that 
is
interesting.

kj

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Alex Hall
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 12:01 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Results of Using the Perkins

Why not use the computer straight away, with the brailleNote as a 
display?
This, of course, assumes the screen reader supports the bn.

On 2/8/12, Julian, Kate <KJulian at bluevalleyk12.org> wrote:
 OK, so picture this, my student is sitting next to me, his 
BrailleNote
 is in his lap as his calculator (he has agreed that he will use 
the
 computer's calculator instead), the computer monitor and 
keyboard in
 front of him so he can key in his work and answers.  The Perkins 
is
 also on the desk along with the necessary paper.  Then there is 
the
 braille version of the test, his brailled test answers, and now 
he is
trying to make test corrections.  YIKES!
 We found that he did complete his algebra better using the 
Perkins and
 then transferring his answers to Word so we can read them.  But 
this
 method is tedious.  I am looking at LiveMath Maker and 
Scientific
 Notebook.  Thank you everybody for your suggestions!

 Have a great day - Kate

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