[nabs-l] BrailleNote Apex--Braille keyboard v. computer keyboard

[clinton waterbury]

I do have a couple of pros and cons to using either keyboard, but I'll start with the pros first.
1: you can type in grade 2 braille, but that's kinda obvious, but it works.
2: You are able to copy the dot combinations you need in nemeth code.
And now for the cons.
1: you can only type so fast on a braille keyboard, and it can sometimes be annoying if you are trying to keep up with an instructor while taking notes, and you end up missing a lot of things.
2: If You need to be able to type in for example, a back slash, you tend to have problems with that on a braille keyboard, as the dots coming up on the display are looking right but you can't really replicate the same pattern on the keyboard or the input comes up as gibberish in a file.
As far as the standard qwerty keyboard is concerned, you can type much faster on that than you can the braille keyboard.
The only con to the qwerty keyboard is that you are, of course, not able to type in braille unless you have braille keys turned on on the braille'note.
On Apr 28, 2010, at 1:40 PM, Serena wrote:

> Hey nabsters,
> 
> I'm thinking of getting a BraileNote Apex, the latest in the BN family.  I'm thinking about the pros and cons of using a Braille style keyboard and those of using a computer style keyboard.  Besides simply being used to the keyboard you have now, have you found any pros and/or cons to using either keyboard?  One con of using a computer keyboard might be getting out of the habit of writing grade 2 Braille.  (Don't worry ... I'll still remember my Nemeth Code when taking Statistics in the next year or two!)  Does this really matter in such a computer-based society?
> 
> Thanks,
> Serena
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