[nfbcs] K-Maps

Thu Sep 29 19:25:35 UTC 2016

In case it's germane...

My favorite way of doing graphs, diagrams, etc., was to hand my reader a blank sheet of Braille paper and something
very sharp, like a safety pin, and instruct the reader to place the page on a hard surface, like a desk, and draw
by scratching the page with the sharp object. A sufficiently sharp point will draw a raised line on the surface
(not the reverse side) of the paper.  The result is quite tactily useful. I would then roll the page into a
Brailler and ask the reader to tell me where to put labels. The result of this was a book of drawings with Braille
captions and labels that survives to this day, nearly 25 years later, still usable.

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 05:35:53PM +0000, NFBCS mailing list wrote:
The PIAF machine (pictures in a flash) does tactile graphics. If your institution has a PIAF they could perhaps make you tactile squares of all the symbols you need and put adhesive magnetic material on the back. I prepared this for one of our students, and I am blind.

I made a table in Word with all the symbols and used 72 point so each was an inch tall. This was for algebra though, not for circuit analysis which would use skematics.

Then I printed that grid on PIAF paper and ran it through the PIAF machine.

Now I had tactile grids with symbols. Next I had a student worker, who was sighted carefully cut the squares.

We used the adhesive magnets you can get from craft stores for fridge magnets. One was glued on the back of each square. It actually turned out looking quite neat. You can get stronger adhesive magnets in electronics stores; they are used to hold small tools to tables or shelves. 

The student worked with the symbols on the side of a large metal filing cabinet. It was sort of a tactile whiteboard.

--Debee

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione via nfbcs
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 10:25 AM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Cc: Tracy Carcione
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] K-Maps

If it's a grid, could a person use braille graph paper, if it's still available?  It's a sheet of paper with a grid of raised-line boxes, with space for 1 character in each box.

I think Excel would do the job, but, personally, I find it very hard to get a complete picture when I'm looking at one box at a time.  I need hardcopy, if I want a real sense of what the whole thing looks like.
Tracy

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Doug Lee via nfbcs
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 11:55 AM
To: Edgar Lozano via nfbcs
Cc: Doug Lee
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] K-Maps

I did this long ago (like 1989 or so) and just made Braille tables for them.
Nowadays you could also use something like Excel I'm sure. You have the correct idea: They are matrices of values - as I recall, 0's, 1's, and deltas for "don't care." In Braille I just used 0, 1, and d, respectively; the same would work for you in Excel though I'm sure you could use an actual Delta if communicating with sighted teachers or students.

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 10:32:22AM -0500, NFBCS mailing list wrote:
Hello Everyone,

This is my first time posting to this list. I'm a totally blind student enrolled in a computer science university course essentially titled Digital Logic. Much of we are covering is related to circuits and electronic components. I understand everything. However, my instructor is informing me that we'll need to make extensive use of K-maps, a visual technique designed to aid in the simplifying of Boolean algebra equations. Has anybody on this list taken a course like this? I must admit, this is the first time in my university years that I have a feeling that this will slow me down. I'm thinking about purchasing a Draftsman board from APH. Maybe this will assist me in getting the big picture of how a k-map is laid out. I know these drawings are essentially matrices with bits arranged in column-row fashion in boxes. Anyway, if someone has gone through a similar course like this, I would appreciate any tips you have to facilitate the understanding of k-maps and how I may be able to produce them.

Thank you.

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