[gui-talk] Information about the Optacon

[Rick Roderick]

Rachel,

An optacon was loaned to me during the 70s.  I got pretty accurate with it 
but was never fast.  Braille will always be my medium.

However, I  have often wondered if I could have gotten good if they had 
developed one that had letters come up as vibrating pins, rather than 
vibrating pins.  I had to quote some material, so I would read it into a 
recorder while the Optacon was going.  When I played  it  back, I got mostly 
the  Optacon noise.

I think a new Optacon should incorporate the following features.

1.  A setting for automatic zoom, so  that it could sense the sizes of 
letters.  However, it should be able to be toggled.

2.  Letter simplification.  ?This is  another feature that should be able to 
be toggled.  Often fancy letters can be hard to read.  Perhaps, they could 
be replaced by simpler letters, if  one desires.

I think an Optacon is useful for reading strangely formatted print and 
determine page numbers is a book, and of course, reading certain kinds of 
displays.