Sigcat Software Showcase 1993

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CHAPTER SEVEN CD-ROM AS ACCOMMODATION TECHNOLOGY CD-ROM PUBLISHING FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY John Churchill Vice President, Production Services Recording for the Blind Recording for the Blind, headquartered in Princeton New Jersey, is the only non-profit organization that provides educational books on tape, library services, computerized books and other educational materials to individuals who cannot read standard print because of a visual, physical or perceptual disability. HISTORY OF RFB RFB was founded in 1948 to provide recorded textbooks to blind war veterans attending college under the GI Bill of Rights. Since then, RFB has expanded its clientele to include students at other academic levels and professionals. In addition, RFB also serves individuals with other disabilities such as physical handicaps that make it impossible to handle a book or perceptual disabilities such as dyslexia for which recorded books can be very helpful. The Recording for the Blind audio library contains some 80,000 titles covering a full range of disciplines and is the largest educational resource of its kind in the world. Last year RFB mailed 161,000 analog audio books to over 27,000 individuals across the U.S. and 35 countries. RFB is able to produce these books through the efforts of 4800 skilled volunteers who work at 31 recording studios located across the country. It is through these volunteers, that RFB is able to produce close to 3,000 new books each year. Three thousand is still a small portion of the estimated 40,000 new books that are published annually in the U.S.. The RFB Library represents over 1.8 million hours of recording and has an estimated value of some $240 million in donated volunteer time. RFB's audio books are produced on analog cassettes at 15/16 ips (half the commercial speed), and contain 4 tracks of monaural information. Our books average 7 cassettes each, and approximately 28 hours in length. CONSUMER BASE The distribution of RFB's consumer base consists of approximately 43% who are blind or visually impaired, 4% physically disabled, and over 50% learning disabled. The mix of our population base has been slowly changing over the years. The majority of our consumers are now learning disabled, changing a tradition of serving a blind or visually disabled majority. The educational level of RFB's consumer base is broken down as follows; 42% college level, 20% high school, 25% elementary, and 13% professionals or graduate students. E-TEXT In 1990 RFB conducted a survey of its consumer base to find specifically what its users wanted, and what suggestion they had to improve RFB's service. In the area of computer utilization, we found that a very high percent - 65%- had access to or currently own a personal computer and that another 15% intended to purchase one in the next 2 to 3 years. Based on the information developed from this survey, RFB launched a new service which it called E-Text in early 1991. In July 1991, RFB merged with an organization called Computerized Books for the Blind which was founded by George Kerscher. George started his organization to provide books on computer diskette to disabled individuals. He recognized the benefits and the effectiveness of having materials in machine-readable form. With traditional analog audio books, all search and retrieval activities are linear. It can take considerable time to find a specific portion of a 500-600 page textbook. Using the powers of the computer, that same information can be accessed within seconds. The RFB E- Text program is essentially a new service that provides information on diskette to RFB registered consumers. We are currently providing on diskette materials such as our newsletter, information guides, textbooks and reference books. The service is now producing 15-20 new books each month on computer disk, and have approximately 300 books in our electronic library. Since July, over 2400 books on floppy disks have been distributed and we expect to mail close to 3500 this fiscal year with projections for 5000 for 1993. Why computer diskette? In addition this medium is well suited for the management of large educational materials. It also affords different means of access through synthetic speech, paper braille, large print and from a production standpoint - much faster turnaround. A book that is produced in a machine-readable format can be produced in a matter of weeks. The same textbook read can take several months to complete. PRODUCTION OF E-TEXT The production process starts with securing copyright permission, and the electronic source files from the publishers. If the source file is not available, we obtain printed copies of the book and scan it. However, if the publisher's source files are available, we use programs to remove the control and typeset characters to produce what we call a preliminary text file. The preliminary text file which is produced in our R & D department is then sent to one of RFB's E-text studios. RFB's 31 studios, located across the country are staffed by trained and highly skilled volunteers who are versed in disciplines such as mathematics, physics, computer sciences and other areas. They utilize the same skills employed to produce audio books to produce electronic books. Graphics, charts, and tables that are verbally described on tape are keyed in and made available through the personal computer. At the RFB recording studio, the files are formatted and undergo an editing process. This is a necessary task, required to clean-up and add structure to the file. RFB has been developing a manual which specifies the conventions and guidelines for compiling an electronic book. After all editing is completed, the files are sent to our R&D facility, for final quality control, and sectioning into 360K divisions. The completed book is then sent to our Princeton headquarters to be placed in the electronic library. LIMITATIONS There are, however, problems emerging on the horizon. If textbooks become increasingly larger, the additional amount of space needed to insert full descriptions of graphics only compound their problem. The next phase of RFB's E-text program is clear. We need to secure an efficient and effective search and retrieval vehicle that will enable the consumer to make more effective use of the materials. A standardized S/R vehicle would also obviate the need for RFB's consumer to utilize whatever resident software program they may have in order to access our flat ASCII file books. At this time, RFB is currently in negotiation with IBM to utilize their BookManager software which we believe may make our books truly accessible. Once this step has been realized, the next challenge will be to address the necessary media to accommodate RFB's electronic textbooks. Clearly the next phase will be the implementation of CD-ROM technology as a vehicle or platform that can contain obviously not only very large books, but perhaps entire libraries. RFB is contemplating creating educational CD-ROM libraries which can contain up to 40 complete textbooks. These textbooks would be available on the CD-ROM in RFB's flat ASCII format, in BookManager soft copy, and in perhaps two to three sizes of large print. This multi-platform CD would provide the end user with up to five minutes of accessing each textbook. The flat ASCII file could be used to produce a paper braille copy of the book, in BookManager form that same book could be accessed through synthetic speech or refreshable braille and lastly, large print versions of the book could be accessed certainly via the computer monitor or produced on paper at the user's discretion. This CD concept could be an extra vehicle for the classroom and teacher, enabling the educator with limited computer experience to select the version of textbook that is appropriate for his/her student. CONCLUSION We believe that CD-ROM technology will be one of the paths that RFB pushes in its production of educational materials. Although certainly CD-ROM drives are not yet a common place peripheral component in all PC systems, they are becoming increasingly more commonplace. As the disabled community increases its training and utilization of computer aided devices, the CD-ROM will certainly share an increasingly more focal role in the distribution of materials to this population. OPENING DOORS FOR BLIND USERS VIA CD-ROM Dr Judith Dixon Consumer Relations Officer National Library Service for the Blind & Physically Handicapped Library of Congress As our previous speaker has indicated, the three ways for a blind person to access a computer screen are braille, speech, and large print. The most expensive of these, but also the most preferred by many of us, is braille access. A braille display currently costs about $6,000 while reasonable speech access can be had for about $1,000. The vast majority of blind computer users these days are using speech systems largely because of the cost but also because most people who were not blind as children never really have an opportunity to develop very good braille skills and are therefore not very fast braille readers. Those of us who were blind as children and learned braille thoroughly have found braille access to be far preferable. ACCESS TO REFERENCE MATERIALS CD-ROM's are providing blind people with an opportunity that has literally never before been available. Up until now, reference books in braille and recorded form have been virtually non-existent. The braille encyclopedia that Robert was describing is no longer available. An audio cassette encyclopedia which was available for a time is also no longer available. A blind person can buy a 72-volume braille dictionary, but when we are talking about volumes, We are talking about a third of a cubic foot. So a blind person can buy a 27-cubic foot collegiate dictionary that is the equivalent of a print dictionary which is 2 inches thick and costs $9.95 in paperback. The price of this 72-volume braille dictionary, which would take up many bookshelves, is $1,395.77. There is no encyclopedia available in braille at all. There was only one encyclopedia ever available in braille. That was the 1959 World Book. So, for those of us who don't read print, the personal computer equipped with CD-ROM capability has made available a tremendous amount of material in a format that we can read ourselves. When I first started using a computer it was a CP/M machine. My CP/M computer had 2 floppy drives and no hard disk and I thought it was the best thing that ever happened. At first, I was delighted because I could read documentation on disk. Then when everyone in the office began using a computer whenever someone wrote a memo, I didn't need a sighted person to read it to me anymore. I could say "Just give it to me on a disk, I can read that." What I meant was "I can read it myself". Being able to read it yourself is so much better than having someone read it to you. Now, with CD-ROM's, we have access to a far greater amount of material and especially those long sought-after reference books. The Library for the blind in Cleveland is offering an on-demand braille and large-print information service so that the 11,000 patrons of the Cleveland library can call the library and say "I am interested in information about horses" and the librarian can simply bring up the articles on horses in the Grolier's Encyclopedia, send the material to disk, print it out on a braille printer or laser printer, and just mail it out to the individual. And those people have access to dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, and a wide variety of reference material that they have never had before. The librarian was telling me the other day that one of the first information requests she received was from a man who called up and said "I would like an article form the encyclopedia on Hawaii." It turned out that the only encyclopedia he had ever used was the 1959 braille World Book which was printed before Hawaii became a state. It may seem to people who have been able to read print all their lives that finding out something like information about Hawaii is a very mundane thing, but for us, it is a tremendously exciting experience to get information in a form we search and read ourselves. THE INTERFACE I want to offer some thoughts about what kind of an interface with CD-ROM's is maximally friendly and useable for blind people. One of the most important is that all functions be available directly from the keyboard. This means that if a mouse is part of the system, it is optional, not required. I said this once at a conference and at the end a gentleman came up to me and said "You mean that blind people can't move a mouse?" I replied that I can move a mouse, I can move it fine, I just don't know where to stop. Everything has to be done from the keyboard. For speech access, programs that write directly to the screen are more difficult to use because the speech user has to actually go into screen review and ask the software to read a particular line whereas if the program writes go through BIOS, the program automatically speaks. This is not an issue for braille access just for speech. It is also helpful if the hardware cursor follows the choices on the menu, the highlighting bar, or whatever it is, rather than just being parked somewhere on the side and using just highlighting to indicate the choice. With both speech and braille access, it is possible to determine highlighting so if a program doesn't use the hardware cursor, access is possible, it is just quite a bit more cumbersome. Also, it helps if the screen is not too cluttered and there isn't a lot of ornamentation. Speech synthesizers say "star star star star ..." when they encounter whole lines of asterisks. It is possible to set things up so that repeating characters are only spoken twice but that causes problems too. If the program places text in boxes in the middle of other text without clearing the screen, reading lines straight across the screen can yield some very unintelligible information. And, it is also helpful if menu selections can be made by entering a letter or alt-letter key as opposed to having to cursor down and highlight the desired option. This makes it much easier to remember frequent actions in familiar programs rather than having to remember how many right arrows to hit. It is very important to be able to override the program's configuration. I have a VGA board in my computer and if the CD-ROM is one that detects VGA and then functions accordingly, it may go into a graphics mode and I can't read it at all. Or the software may detect a color monitor and give me only a color display and yet it is easier in braille to see what is highlighted if I can have the display in a monochrome mode. Sometimes, when publishers try to make things easier for the user by having the software automatically detect the hardware configuration, it can have the effect of making things more difficult, or even impossible, for blind users. It is very helpful to have switches to override the software's defaults. THE GRAPHICS PROBLEM So far, we have been talking about how exciting CD-ROM's are for blind people, but there is one very negative phenomenon looming every larger -- the graphical interface. At this point in time, graphical interfaces are not useable by blind persons using braille or speech. They can be useable, to some degree, by blind persons using large print but many of us don't have that option. With a braille device, when I use a CD-ROM that goes into a graphics display all the characters on my navigator (braille display) turn to question marks. Some CD-ROM's products are a bit more friendly about it because they let the user escape out or the display will just be graphical for a moment and then return to a text display. Some CD-ROM's offer a text only switch which is nice because I never find myself falling into any of the graphics screens. The point here is that we don't really expect to have access to pictures. I am not trying to use an atlas CD-ROM but what really does concern me is to not have access to words just because the words are displayed in a graphical interface. I was really worried when MicroSoft announced that the new MicroSoft Bookshelf would only be available for Windows. At the last moment, they came out with a DOS version which I can use but if it had only been for windows, it would have been absolutely impossible to use. That seems like such a waste when the reference books are stored on disk in an ASCII format and it is only the interface that prevents access. There are three significant efforts going on in the country to try to resolve the graphics problem. One is by IBM which is working on an access package for Presentation Manager. Another is Berkeley Systems which is working on access to windows. And the third is by The Trace Research Center at the University of Wisconsin which is also working on access to Windows. But we don't have it yet. There are prototypes that can sort of display words but they are a long way from having something which is usable to do real work. It is still not possible. CONCLUSION I would like to close by reiterating that for a sighted person using all this technology, you can enjoy marginal increases in cost, marginal increases in storage space, convenience in searching, and so forth. But for the blind person using this technology, we now have access to hundreds and thousands of volumes of material that would have otherwise absolutely not been available. It is not just easier, it would just not have been possible. So for us, CD-ROM's are a tremendous breakthrough. Any of you involved in publishing, please don't make the interface more difficult than it needs to be, give us options to have it plain vanilla, and don't use a graphical interface unless it is necessary. Thank you. WHAT THE REHABILITATION ACT IMPLIES FOR THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY Rex Hancock General Services Administration Clearinghouse on Computer Accessibility I would imagine as a manufacturer, a developer, someone who is thinking of a CD-ROM application what are the implications we are talking about, how does this impact you? I would like to ask informally - how many are you in the process of producing, have produced, a manufacturer or distributor? A fair number. What I would like to try to do is help you to understand what it is we are talking about and understand the implications of the law. If you are marketing to the federal government if you don't understand the law as it relates to access to information technology you should. In fact you may find yourself in a position at some point where the product you are producing is inaccessible and that product is no longer a viable product to sell to the federal government. What I want to do is talk about accessibility a little bit, the scope of the law, some of the applicable statutes, some of the problems or opportunities that you face as well as we as well and some of the design applications. You have heard from Robert and Judy a little bit about some of the very simple things that can be done to ensure the products that we, the federal government, and you are producing this is not only a federal issue. I would like to, if I can, help set apart some of the issues, as it relates to the Americans With Disabilities Act and some of the implications there and the federal government arena and the statutes there that we operate under. There are some differences. EQUAL ACCESS A few nights ago there was a program on PBS, it has been an ongoing series, about information technology -- the machine that changed the world. There was a very graphic illustration about how far we had progressed in our use of information technology. There was a very interesting metaphor that would be good to bring up here. They talked about how we finally got around to assembling printed material that all of this material was kept in bound volumes and administered typically by monks and in fact the books because there was no concept of a library at that time there was no wastes, printed bound material was so scarce, there was no way you could anywhere, find this material and take it back to your home and at your leisure and read through the information. In fact the information was kept on shelves and the books were actually chained to the shelves. And I thought its amazing look how far we've come, we have such wide open access to information. But do we really? As you have just heard for some people - those chains are still there. And what we are talking about is really parody. We are talking about equal access to information technology, to the resources that we are developing and using to everybody. And the access we are talking about is what Judy described - its not something new and different and unique. Its just adhereing to some common sense principles that will enable access to information by everyone. COMMON SENSE PRINCIPLES Let me give you some additional ideas about accessibility as Judy mentioned. Part of my responsibility in the clearinghouse I represent is to interact with federal employees, their managers, industry, and the academic community. My job is to help them to understand the implications and to communicate with them on projects they are working on. We want to be sure we understand the depth of the issue related to access to CD-ROM information to ensure we are not crying the sky is falling. There are ways with technology that is being developed that information on CD-ROM is accessible. As Judy described there is a gentleman at IBM who has developed a product that makes presentation manager speech accessible. The information presented in the screens can be read by a speech synthesizer enabling someone who relies on speech for access to the information to actually use that product. Microsoft in collaboration with other companies is working on similar access methodology. But the crux of the problem comes down to accessing printed or ASCII information. We take this information and put together a CD-ROM. We take this information in ASCII and then we bury it in this disk in some unrecognizable form and then put an interface in front of it that no one can access. Some of the things we are talking about are just common sense principles. When we talk about accessibility it is really more than just a concept. ACCESSIBILITY In 1988 the federal government passed a law requiring the federal government to procure information technology resources that are accessible to persons with disabilities. They went one step further the following year and put in place a law that required the federal government to ensure access to telecommunication resources for hearing and speech impaired persons. There have been alot of discussions on just what accessibility means. I have talked to people in industry at great length on how they interpret the requirements. The requirements as were defined in the law were very ambiguous. There was no clear cut definition as to how to make a product accessible to someone who is blind. How do I make my product accessible to someone who is mobility impaired? And how in the heck can I put all of these requirements into a product and make sure its successful? The answer may be in fact you don't have to do anything at all. There is technology that exists in an variety of forms that will enable a person who is mobility impaired or sight impaired to access the information provided there are some common characteristics. ELECTRONIC RAMPS Many of us experience problems dealing with the myriad of variations that exist in user interfaces. When you present information to the screen layering multiple windows on top of each other in multiple columns you can complicate things instead of making them easier. Application of some of these common sense principles, if you talk to people who design user interfaces, will appeal to the mass buying public. We're talking about making something useable, when we talk about making something accessible. When we think about making something accessible many of us think about being able to get into a building using a wheelchair or something like that. Well we are not very far from that in many cases. We are talking about electronic ramps, if you will, to gain access to the information. In some cases the product that you have is inherently accessible but its use by an individual with a disability needs a bridge or ramp. Many of us are stopped at the curb functions that render the information inaccessible - burying it into a graphical user interface, using non-keyboard functions without the redundancy, and non-standard ways of presenting information to the screen. We are talking simply about parity. Look at this room. We have some accommodations right here in this room. You are seated in chairs. We have lights in this room so you can see who is talking. This microphone for those who are in the back of the room enable you to hear me clearly. Those are all accommodations for all of us normal able-bodied people. We take these things for granted. Very often we simply don't understand what its like to be on the other end. Dealing with 50 fifty feet of encyclopedia so that they have equal access to the same information we do is not my idead of parity. And some very simple things can solve that problem. I mentioned briefly that this is a law. How many of you out there have heard of Section 508 or the Rehab Act of 1973 ? Is that familiar to anyone ? My god I see hands out there! This is wonderful. For those of you who don't understand what those laws are about. 1988 REHABILITATION ACT As I mentioned in 1988 the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was re-authorized. The reauthorization included an amendment - an additional section - Section 508 - which described what I have been talking about. The applicability of this law is unique to the federal arena. It was not a requirement in the private sector to hire someone with a disability and provide them with anything other than a job. Some things have changed. If you are market products to the federal government and you keep up with the federal information resource management regulations or FIRMR you are already aware of the regulatory issues here. Federal agencies have a regulatory responsibility to do this. You may be saying to yourself - thats interesting because I have been selling products to the government and this issue has never come up. That is quite possible. As with any organization the size of the federal government it takes time to implement something as far reaching as this policy is. I can assure you that the steps are in place. If your organization is not aware of the law and its applicability they will soon become aware. GSA in it's role as a monitor of government acquisitions of information technology has incorporated into the agency reviews questions on how an agency has implemented accessibility. Many agencies have developed programs similar to our own to assist their agency address issues related to accessibility. There is another important consideration for those of you marketing outside the federal government, the American Disabilities Act. THE AMERICAN DISABILITIES ACT AND SECTION 508 The American Disabilities Act, as you may be aware, has a national scope. ADA in its implementing regulations is embracing the spirit of Section 508. What does that mean? We are talking with people at the Department of Justice, EEOC, and other agencies responsible for the various titles under ADA. I would advise you as you market your products in the private sector to become aware of these issues and the implications thereof. It would be worthwhile to understand what information accessibility means. The ADA will encompass the existing legislation and the new implementing regulations that they are writing I think will be more comprehensive than Section 508. This law (ADA) is less ambiguous than 508, not pointing at a particular type technology, because we all know it things evolve too quickly in this industry. Some people wanted to define individual pieces of equipment that needed to be made accessible. Implementing accessibility can be dealt with in such a way that it would not be advantageous to name specific devices. What we are talking about in many cases could be viewed as a problem or opportunity. PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY? When you look at your market and the tools we have available today implementing accessibility does not require a radical change. It does not mean you have to totally revamp your product. What it may mean is working with the developers, the vendors of technology that provides that ramp, that electronic ramp, that we talked about to ensure the information you provide on the disk that you have is accessible. There are a variety of programs out there today that facilitate that. Judy's illustration of dealing with the encyclopedia was very graphic. We can all understand and appreciate the value of having information on these nice little disks provided it is accessible. Another example is the talking phone book. I saw a demonstration of a multimedia system for a talking phone book. Think about what it would take to put the phone book out in braille and how accessible it would be. You can pick up the phone and ask for information but that costs you money now. Wouldn't it be easier if you could just dial that up on your computer and pull out whatever information you want. Does 411 give you directions to the location you want to go or tell you anything about it, like what its hours are? These are applications that are viable not to a niche market but to all end users, disabled or not, provided we make the information accessible. As a marketeer there are many different things to consider. Look at the population statistics on the baby boomer generation. As we all get older, our eyes begin to fail, our hearing begins to go, and yet we are being deluged by a multimedia blitz. Soon all of this will be a moot point. We couldn't care less if its nice FM stereo or a graphical interface. We don't care about the window dressing we just want the data in the simplest way possible. There are alot of different considerations we often take for granted. In a job setting there are a variety of different scenarios we can discuss that require accessing large volumes of material. We are all famIliar with the tools and the value of this media. There are however alot of benefits we have overlooked. Some may argue that this is a lot to do for a little bit of a market, what some would consider a niche market, and they don't have to pay attention to this market. You may find there is a broader market than you realize. All of this is dependent on paying attention to some very simple things. I think that ultimately what we are talking about is being responsive to our customers. We have heard at this conference about interoperability. In my mind operability and accessiblity are complimentary issues. INTEROPERABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY If you achieve one you are very close to achieving the other. If you could take any disk and put in a player and through the same interface methods access information on that disk. Consider the implications for someone with a disability. They have had to develope their own unique methodologies and tools to access information. If they're lucky and using a particular disk that someone had the foresight to make sure the menus are presented in a very simple way, the information may be accessible. If they switch to another disk chances are they may have a problem. This is why interoperability has become a major issue. For system developers the message is listen to your customers and don't forget there are more customers than you may realize. CONCLUSION What we are talking about realistically is making the information more accessible to all of us. Let's not forget that there are some other people out there we need to include in this process. You may consider if in fact you are a developer or someone thats putting together a package, before that master gets cut, before you go out and produce multiple copies ask someone or an organization - they will be more than willing to work with you and in fact test that product and see how accessible it. You may find it interesting when you consider the government programs providing information on CD-ROM to taxpayers will have to be accessible. I think you will find that the numbers will surprise you. There is a larger market than you realize. We need to remove the barriers in our way to accessing that information. For more information about some of the things I have discussed here a handbook from our office entitled "Managing Information Resources for Accessibility" is available. In it there are some very simple ways to provide acces or review access to information technology. It also has some of the names of the more than 200 suppliers of technology that can enable access to your current products. CD-ROM AS ACCOMMODATION TECHNOLOGY Robert S. Jacquiss Jr. Computer Programmer Tektronix Inc. I am one of the co-chairs of SIGTEAL, which is the special interest group to expedite the accommodations law. The title of this session is CD-ROM as accommodations technology. I would like to put a more positive spin on this topic. Some people, when they hear "accommodations technology" - think "oh no - here's the crazy handicapped people they are out to get something else out of us". My philosophy is if your CD-ROM products are useable by the handicapped you will have an increased market. I don't want to steal other peoples' thunder up here. I have a personal interest in CD-ROMs. They have a great promise for increasing the number of reference materials available to the disabled. As an example, in 1963 my father bought me a World Book Braille Encyclopedia. (How many of you had encyclopedias in your house as children? You know, kinda wave out there. I assume there some people are waving, I can't see you, but I assume there are.) In 1963 I was the only person in the United States to have a braille encyclopedia. It cost $661.25 which was was a subsidized price because World Book corporporation and Field Enterprises Foundation subsidized its production to the tune of $250,000 at that time. $660 was twice my father's monthly pay as a school teacher. I think the price of a volkswagon Beetle was about $1700. So this was a very expensive book. And so I looked up stuff in the encyclopedia like everyone else. There were only 100 braille encyclopedias issued - 2 for every state - 1 for each school for the blind and 1 for the regional library. So if you were a blind person, living out in Podunkville and you wanted to look up something, you wrote to your regional library, they sent the particular volume of interest and by volume - there are 145 volumes and they are (like) 3 1/2" thick, a foot high, a foot wide. So they are nice size books. You read what you wanted from the book, you sent the book back. If the article said see also xxyz, then you had to request the library send you the other volumes xxyz and heaven help you if your school report was due in two weeks because you weren't going to get there in time. The next accessible encylcopedia was the one the American Printing House for the Blind did in the early 80's. It was on cassettes, 150 audio cassettes. You can imagine reading a whole encyclopedia. (That's worse than reading a bible). And you had an index book and it said cassette 10, index number so-and-so, and you set the machine, pushed the button, random access cassette drive, and it goes out there, and you can play your article. The next accessible encyclopedia was on one of these little CD-ROMs. I am holding up a CD-ROM package if there are any disabled people out there. It was Grolier's which I purchased from DAK - one of their CD-ROM bundles. And I could type in "braille" and I got blindness, education of the blind, braille which described the braille system, Lewis Braille who was the person who invented braille in the first place and Helen Keller. That was instant. It came up in seconds! I was impressed. I had been reading about and advocating CD-ROM. I hadn't actually had my hands on a CD-ROM and drive, and now I had actually gotten information out of the thing. The other thing I was going to talk about was many people ask -"how do blind people access computers"? One of our panelists (Judy Dixon) brought this device - I am going to hold this up - I won't drop her $6,000 navigator - there is keyboard - this a 40 column braille display and there are pins that jump up and down and you can feel those and you know exactly whats on the screen. Thats one way - probably the best way to access a computer. There are other companies that make braille displays - the one I use at work has an 80 column display made by ALvA in Holland. That's the "Cadillac" access system, using this you can tell how the words are spelled and how they are punctuated. Its kind of neat in Word Perfect you can press shit F6, and the cursor goes zipping over to the center of the display, and as you are typing in the cursor sits there moving to the left while the letters move to the right - it was impressive, I had never seen text center before. The other way we do access computers is with speech synthesizers, these connect to serial or a parallel port, or to a card the goes inside the machine and the coomputer speaks in a monotone and is reasonably understandable. To anyone who has heard a Dectalk that is one of the better synthesizers. Some of the other synthesizers don't sound very good. Its like listing to your kids - you have a little 2-year old, the parents know what he/she is saying but no one else does. Speech synthesizers are! getting better, however; the cheaper they are the worse they sound. Another technology, (I don't use it), is for some people who are just visually impaired. It is a large print display. What happens is you use a computer with a VGA card and the letters are enlarged using special software. You use a mouse to select the section of the screen to look at. If you want your letters two inches tall and put your nose up against the screen, you can do it. There are also braille printers. If I am looking in DiscPassage Audubon's Mammals, and I want to read about beavers I can print the article to disk and I can take the beaver article run it through the braille translator prgram and can then come up with a reasonably good - grade two braille translation of the article and a child can read about beavers. That's roughly how it's done. You notice of course that the CD-ROM is going to open some windows of opportunity - not MICROSOFT windows however.