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deaflab
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1992-05-06
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DeafLab Version 1.7
By: Gary A. Creighton
1434 East Drachman
Tucson, Arizona
85719
WHAT IS DeafLab?
----------------
1) It is designed to act as a hand signing interface for the Deaf
community. It allows a deaf person to understand in handsigns what
someone is saying who doesn't know the hand signs themselves. You would
be surprised to know how many in the deaf community can read signs
perfectly, but have trouble with letters.
2) It is also designed to act as a teaching tool to those who may not
be deaf, but would like to learn handsigning so they can finally
communicate with deaf friends.
3) Thirdly, it is designed for those people with hearing impairment who
have never yet learned how to hand sign, possibly because it was frowned
upon in years past. To these I dedicate this program. May your world
open up and become much bigger.
THE SHAREWARE PLEA
------------------
This is a ShareWare product. The market for a program of this type
is limited, so I would hope that if you use it to teach handsigning
to others, or use it to you teach yourself how to sign; you would please send
$15.00 to the above address. Neither the idea, nor the graphics may be used
in a commercial or shareware product without written permission from me.
HOW TO GET THE DEAFLAB PROGRAM TO RUN
-------------------------------------
I have included an IconX script file and Icon so that the program
may be run from Workbench, or you may instead put the deaflab program
into your C: directory and from a CLI, type:
Deaflab
and press the RETURN key.
HOW TO USE DEAFLAB
------------------
It is easy to use 'DeafLab'. All you do is you type letters, and
they will appear in the handsigning window area at the bottom of the screen.
Only the alphabetic keys and their capitals have hand sign pictures, although
I plan for the next version to include the numeric keys as well.
You may use the 'Backspace' key to delete letters. When the
'Backspace' key is hit, a picture of an 'X' shows to caution the Deaf reader
that there were mistakes in what he just read.
When a word contains two letters that are the same (like in
Mississippi), a small gap is put between the two letters to distinguish
them.
When a space or carriage return is encountered, a blank handsigning
window will be shown so as to indicate to the reader a new word.
Although I have included a Workbench icon, I don't know if it will
work on WB 1.2 and below as I tested it on ARP 1.3 and WB 1.3 which both
open up a little window for the program before running it.
ADJUSTING THE READING SPEED
---------------------------
The display of handsigns are slowed down from the typing speed so
that the deaf reader can understand it . To adjust the reading speed, just
use the 'Faster Arrow' gadget and the 'Slower Arrow' gadget which may be
found at the far left of the DeafLab Window. At the moment there is a small
bug if you click on one of the two speed arrow gadgets and don't let up on
the mouse button until you move off of the arrow gadget, then it will wait
for a 'Gadget Up' signal that never comes. Any letters typed will appear to
lock up. To release it from this mode, just click on either of the two
arrow gadgets and all the letters that have been typed will be released.
READING SPEED GAUGE
-------------------
Just to the right of these speed arrow gadgets is the 'Speed Gauge'
which gives you an indication of the reading speed setting which may be
adjusted using the arrow gadgets as described above.
HOW TO EXIT FROM THE PROGRAM
----------------------------
You may either click on the window's close gadget or you can press
the ESC key.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
------------------
You will notice that there are gadgets which are there which
aren't yet implemented in the program. Version 1.7 is a pre-release
program to see what kind of interest there is in this type of
program. I am releasing this version as it has enough features
included in it for people to be able to use it as a learning tool or
a communication tool, but have left 'hooks' in the program which
leave easy access to me to add new features later.
One feature I am planning to add to the program is the ability to
hand-sign text files. This is what the 'Text' gadget will be used
for in the future. Right now, (if you have the arp.library in your
libs: directory) you will get a requester which allows you to enter
a text file name. You will 'Stop' the text flow by clicking on the
text gadget.
Also in the planning stage is the ability for the program to act
as a 'Tutor' or which will allow the letters which are typed by the
user to not be signed until a 'RETURN' key is pressed. This will
allow people to try to read their own sentence afterwards, and
encourages attentiveness to what they typed.
Since the purpose of the program is to be an all-around tool for
the deaf community, I would greatly appreciate any ideas on the
matter. If you use this program to learn Handsigning, a shareware
contribution would be appreciated.
BIOGRAPHY
---------
No, I am not deaf. I am an artist who graduated from 'New England
School of Art and Design' in 1975. I have programmed in BASIC, ALGOL,
FORTRAN, 6502 and 68000 machine language, and I am currently teaching myself
C programming which I like immensely. I have done much work with young
people at the 'Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucson', have done work with the
mentally retarded community, have done some volunteer work with the mentally
ill, and am currently doing physical rehabilitation with a brain injured
client at a local health spa. I went cross country by bicycle twice, the
first time in '82' was 5000 miles total, and the second in '86' crossed the
Continental Divide 6 times through the Rockies. I am currently working on a
book about the adventures and plan to go on a third trip when, or before I
turn 40 (I'm 37 right now).