Hi,
Several comments, and a question.
I'll guarantee that I'm older than a lot of you (the first
"talking books" I read as a kid were still being produced at
33-and-a-third RPM!), and the contrast to how things are now is
sometimes hard to grasp or describe. I've been reading science
fiction for over 50 years, so I've had a fair amount of exposure
to a lot of possible futures and realities, and I'm still
astonished every day at the range of material available, and the
ability to download Braille almost instantly and take it anywhere
(thank you, Apex!) As Miriam and David have said, the contrast to
what was produced at all, and how you could (or couldn't) acquire
it, is pretty amazing.
Oh, that Optacon: yeah, it was "primitive" and slow, and would
seem even more so now. But the thing that balanced out all of
its shortcomings was that since it could convert literally
anything printed to a readable form, its usefulness was only
limited by how much you, the reader, knew or maybe just how
curious you were. I used mine to read maps (something I'd always
wanted to do), package directions, mail, album and COULD covers,
including picture captions and huge variations in print size and
styles (white-on-black versus the usual reverse.) There are still
things I was able to do with an Optacon that I haven't seen
scanners handle (though I'm sure that's less so now, with an
increasing amount of devices combining cameras and apps.) I've
heard rumors of "the upgraded Optacon" for decades, so I'm a
little skeptical, but would be happy to test one if it ever comes
along.
About Bookshare, and specifically math and science: I asked this
question of the list a while back (I think) and got no answer.
In my occasional browsing of "new books" in general, I see huge
numbers of what are either textbooks or at least very specialized
titles referring to extremely technical areas of science,
medicine and computing. Since they're being done at all, they
must be readily readable for some segment of the Bookshare
"audience." How are some of these things accessible within the
limits of a refreshable Braille display; or, are people just
reading them as DAISY files, maybe "with images"? (Small footnote
about tables and Braille displays: I enjoy looking at baseball
statistics-box scores, team and player records, etc. In books
containing them, they're either omitted, or don't translate very
coherently, given the limitations of a one-line format versus a
multi-column table. I can get a lot from context and
familiarity, but only so much. Now, back in the days of the
Optacon-ya know, before the wheel was invented, when we had to
walk to school 12 miles uphill both ways through the snow and
were glad to do it ...-I would spend hours looking through things
like The Sporting News Complete Baseball Record Book, partly just
because I could, with no trouble. "I'm just sayin'."were
One more Bookshare thang: I see the dreaded accessibility changes
seem to be a-comin'. I hope, as they mentioned, that they will
indeed have "an alternative" for Braille users. I enjoy my
Victor Stream more every day, but except when there's no other
way to get through a book, I pretty much didn't buy it to be
limited to reading with speech. We shall see what we shall see
(figuratively.)
Andy
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