Re: Optacon and SSA
- From: "Mary Ellen Earls" <meearls@xxxxxxx>
- To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:15:03 -0700
I had to give my optacon back when I left SSA in 1987 and later on about 2
weeks before the newer one came out, I got the one I currently have.
Mary Ellen Earls
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda Gehres" <ljgehres@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 1:15 AM
Subject: Re: Optacon and SSA
Hi Mary Ellen and list,
Although I got my Optacon in roughly August, 1975, and did use it for typing
forms at work, my boss had an image of me being able to read much more
quickly with it than I could have achieved, so I did learn to find certain
fields on computer printouts to verify their accuracy in making changes of
address and similar record changes to accounts. Occasionally, I was given a
few minutes to try to read certain pages in documents having to do with new
training materials, but I never got really good at reading straight text at
work. I used the Optacon less and less at work, and eventually took it home
for my personal use. No one seemed to notice or really care as long as I
had it at work when I needed it. It broke my heart to give it back to the
agency when I left to marry in 1985.
Linda G.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Ellen Earls" <meearls@xxxxxxx>
To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: A Personal Anniversary
> Well I had heard about the optacon on and off in the early '70s and in
> 1975
> wrote to TSI and got all the literature because I had all of these super
> intellectual friends who read Tillich and Sartre and De Sharnet for
> pleasure, and I wanted to read that stuff too.
> Well my Parents were going to California a few months after I had received
> the literature and in the envelope was a letter from someone.
> Well Dad took the letter called TSI and made an appointment as he and Mom
> were going to play golf at Pebble Beach and he thought they'd drive over
> to
> TSI one afternoon.
> They came home and were terribly excited about the Optacon but it wasn't
> until I had worked for the Social Security administration for about a year
> and a half that things really started happening. I was informed that SSA
> had
> bought 20 optacons and would go to offices where blind people worked. The
> thing was that apparently you had to really need the machines for your
> work.
> Dayton's District Office was in trouble as far as performance so the
> lastthing they needed was to have to read all of the stuff which came in
> to
> a blind person.
> So the folks arrived on October 13, 1977 and I had been given I guess tsi
> had sent me a plastic sheet with Braille and print letters on that
> (remember
> that?) Well I had subconsciously or subliminally learned these letters and
> when they came to Dayton to talk to me and the management they asked me to
> see if I could recognize a couple of letters. Well those couple of letters
> progressed to a couple of pages of letters and I was reading sentences.
> Well a couple of weeks later, I was told by my supervisor that 1. I had
> scored 98% on the test they had given me for proficiency with the optacon.
> I
> said "What test, I know of no test!" Then she said I would be leaving for
> California on the 23rd of January, 1978 and it had been decided that
> Dayton
> was not equipped to handle a blind person that I was to go to the
> Cincinnati
> teleservice center where there were 2 blind people.
> Ok I went for training came back to Cincinnati and was immediately told to
> throw that damn machine out that no blind person especially a transfer
> would
> have one in this gal's office.
> So the optacon came home with me and the first book I read was _HARRY _S.
> _TRUMAN by Margaret Truman Daniel.
> And by the way about those philosophers, Tillic etc? I still haven't read
> their works.
> Mary Ellen Earls
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Gailselfridge@xxxxxxx>
> To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 1:43 PM
> Subject: Re: A Personal Anniversary
>
>
> I can't say the exact date when I saw my first optacon but it was in April
> of 1972 and I knew I had to have one. I got one in 1975 for my first
> computer
> programming job and worked for hours daily learning it. So I know what you
> guys are talking about. Now I have two and although I use other things
> for
> reading long documents, I wouldn't give up the versatility of the
> optacon.
>
> Gail
>
> John,
> Your experience sounds so familiar. I first used an Optacon about thirty
> years ago and felt much the same. I remember practising until my index
> finger couldn't recognize anything. Then I'd try another finger! It's
> truly an amazing machine, and one whose technology has never been
> duplicated, even though it is so-called 1960's technology.
> Happy anniversary!!!
> Clinton
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Huffman" <_j.huffman@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> (mailto:j.huffman@xxxxxxxxxxx)
> >
> To: <_optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) >
> Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 9:58 PM
> Subject: A Personal Anniversary
>> Today is thirty-third anniversary of the day I first saw an Optacon and
>> demonstrated it for myself. I was a new grad student at the University
>> of
>> Illinois--Urbana at the time, and the memory is still as fresh as
>> yesterday.
>> Print letters continued to pass under my left index finger for hours
>> afterward! I think I made up my mind that day that I would master the
>> device and someday find a way to own my own.
>>
>> Regards, all, JH
>>
>>
>>
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> To unsubscribe at any time, just send a message to:
>
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>
To unsubscribe at any time, just send a message to:
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