[nabs-l] help with an assistive technology presentation

[Antonio Guimaraes]

The first Braille Lite to come out was a braille lite 18.

this unit worked just like a braille n speak, but with a braille display and 
added display features. I never saw one until 1998 or so, but my girlfriend 
tells me she used one in 1996.

The display was noisy, clicking loudly if you had the clock ticking away the 
seconds, and the first ports had mail pins.

the male pins were more prone to break, so Blazie came out with the 2000 
series, for the braille lite, and braille and speaks.

The ports on the 2000 series were female, and round, and could take more 
abuse, ie wear and tear.

The braille lite 40 had 40 cells of braille, and cursor routing keys. It 
also had two advance bars, and a sleeker paralell port.

Traille lite milenium were the last of the series to come out, and added a 
flash card, and whiz wheels, and in my opinion had inferior hardware 
components.

At this point FS was surely already developing the pac Mate, and dropped any 
further development for the braille lites, and braille and speaks. I believe 
they are still supported.

The 2000 series, if I remember correctly, added much more memory too, about 
10 megs for some units, which was phenomenal for people used to 640 k of 
usable writable memory.

At this time, also, one could brand the braille and speaks and braille lites 
with their name, or organization names.

Look at old braille lite 18 units from the Florida school for the deaf and 
the blind, and you will find my name on one of those babies, and that of my 
class mates, if the units are still around.

Just a little from memory.

Antonio M. Guimaraes Jr.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patricia" <bcsarah.fan at gmail.com>
To: "nabs" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 1:17 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] help with an assistive technology presentation


> Hi everyone:
>
> I was asked about a month ago by my Disability Services Advisor if i would 
> be willing to do a presentation on assistive technology for the blind 
> across the lifespan for an assistive technology class that she would be 
> teaching to special Ed students. I jumped at the opportunity. I get an 
> hour and a half to present, and decided that before I delve into the 
> technology of today that I give a background on the technologies of the 
> past i.e. the very first commercial notetaker, the first notetaker with a 
> braille display, etc. As i never used many of these technologies myself 
> (the only notetaker I have ever used is the Pac Mate) I have been doing 
> research into the others to get a bit of a background and some info for 
> the presentation. However I can't seem to find any information on the 
> Braille Lite. This surprised me because this is a piece of technology that 
> many of my friends had used in school. I was wondering if any of you could 
> give me a brief history of the Braille LIte (the first version, before it 
> was taken over by Freedom Scientific). Does anyone know when the Braille 
> Lite came out?
>
> Any help on this would be great.
>
> Hope you all are having a wonderful summer.
>
> Patricia
>
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