[il-talk] another tech question

Thu Sep 12 16:58:59 UTC 2013

Good morning Rob,

First let me say that I was only able to progress most of the way through Grade 1½ of Braille before both of my hands went completely numb, but having studied the general properties of Braille and having an extensive background in Computer Science, Mathematics, Electronics, and Communications over the last four decades of my life I feel I can speak with a fairly high level of knowledge on the subject of translators, printers, and the related logic behind printers that can print both plain text and Braille output.

Although I do not own a Braille printer I have friends that do and have extensively researched them. The key challenge that a combination Braille and print printer is that a single line of print will typically occupy many lines of Grade One Braille. Leveraging more compact forms of Braille you can reduce the ratio of Braille characters to print characters a bit. The more advanced forms of Braille for Mathematics and Computer Science will also change this Braille. 

In a nutshell the print will end well before the Braille does. You will have many pages of Braille far after the plain text printing finishes. I might add that these printers are very expensive. You have to demonstrate a strong competency in Braille before anyone would consider dropping the upwards to $15K for such a printer. My price reference is a few years old so it may be cheaper or more expensive by now. Braille printers seems to have a rather narrow market space. Which following the rules of supply and demand one can easily understand why such printers are fairly expensive. 

Please excuse my poor descriptions of the different types of Braille, as I do not recall all of the terms I was once very familiar with.

On Sep 12, 2013, at 04:13 CDT, "Rob Kaiser" <rcubfank at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Hello there. My friend, Mike had thought that there was a combo braille and print printer. He thought that it was something that would print things in braille and translate the documents into print. 
> 
> I have a feeling that there is no such animal, but I thought I owuld would put this question out on the listserves. 
> 
> If anyone could get back to me, either by phone (847)989-0768 or by email;
> rcubfank at sbcglobal.net
> I would appreciate it. 
> 
> Thanks. 
> 
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