[optacon-l] Optacon article from January 2009 Braille Forum
- From: "Mary Emerson" <maryemerson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Optacon" <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:40:28 -0800
Here it is, below.
PLEASE BRING BACK THE OPTACON!
by Pam Coffey
For many years, my faithful print-reading aid was the Optacon, distributed by
Telesensory Systems, then in Palo Alto, Calif. For those of you who are
relatively
new to blindness issues, this was a tactile scanner. Weighing about four
pounds, it was extremely portable. It had a rechargeable battery pack and AC
adapter,
making it usable when the power went out or you were far from an electrical
outlet. It was unusually dependable (my Optacon had to be repaired only three
times), and it was incredibly versatile.
To use this device, you placed the camera, which wasn't much larger than a
finger, onto what you wanted to read. The camera, connected to the main unit
by a long cable, picked up what was directly underneath it, and the electronics
within the main unit converted it into tactile vibrations according to
the shape of the character under the camera. The vibrations registered on a
little plate, called the array, which was in the main unit. You moved the camera
with your right hand and read the vibrations with your left index finger. The
reading was quite slow -- you read only one character at a time -- and
considerable
training was required in order to use the device. But increased proficiency
came with experience, and the rewards were great, because you had absolute
control over what you read.
Because the camera rested on the material to be read, you could read things
that were curved, such as labels on soup cans or medicine bottles, without first
removing the label. You could make adjustments for the size, color, and
boldness of the print, as well as for the intensity of the vibrations. If the
text
was complicated by graphics, insets, sidebars and other such things, you -- and
not the machine -- decided how best to deal with them. While you might
not be able to decipher the minute details of a picture, you could determine
its size, shape, and other basic characteristics. Because the device did not
talk to you, your imagination gave voice to what you read, as it does when you
read braille or a sighted person reads print.
When you turned the machine on, you didn't have to wait for it to warm up, and
you didn't have to wait for it to scan an entire page -- it was "read as
you go." There was even an optional magnifying lens for extremely small print,
and an optional typewriter attachment which enabled you to read what you
were typing.
When, in October of 2003, my 26-year-old Optacon let me know that it needed a
fourth repair, I discovered that not only were they no longer being made,
but also that no one was servicing them. Therefore, because I am always needing
access to printed materials, my only choice (since I am not a computer
geek) was to invest in one of the new-fangled speech-output stand- alone
scanners. I finally decided on one that was relatively small (about 14 pounds),
and that didn't require a technician to set it up. This was important, as I
would soon move from a fair-sized house into an apartment, and because I am
not much of a techie.
I soon found myself at the mercy of the machine. I waited for it to boot up,
then waited for it to scan a whole page, then, once I was reading, I hoped
it didn't decide to power down by itself or the power wouldn't go out and I'd
lose what I was reading. Because the material lays on a flat screen, it must
be perfectly flat in order to be read properly -- which means peeling the label
off the soup can. If the material has those complications mentioned above,
you either endure a considerable wait for everything to process, or you are
given an announcement such as "no text is recognizable." Also, you have no
way of knowing how the material is laid out on the page, and things really get
interesting if the page is larger than the screen. In that case, I scan
part of it at a time, then jump back and forth between the segments --
possible, but often exasperating. This was not an issue with the Optacon. As
long
as the cable would reach, it made no difference.
True, you can read faster with the newer machines, but only when no quirks
appear and no scanning delays occur. And yes, you can save material for later
use with these machines, which is nice and often convenient, but if the power
surges while you are feeding the material in, you lose it. In addition, you
cannot use them without electricity. While, overall, the reading voices of
these scanners are very good, they sometimes have difficulty dealing with
regional
dialects, foreign words, and abbreviations which can be used for several
different words (e.g., Dr. can mean "doctor" or "drive"). The machine chooses
one interpretation for an abbreviation, when the text might refer to the other.
In addition, you may get the same announcement when a page is utterly blank
as you do when it is totally covered by a non-captioned picture. With the
Optacon, on the other hand, if the page was blank, the array didn't vibrate at
all. If the page was covered by a graphic, the whole array might vibrate.
Finally, there is the dependability issue. Because the newer, more
computer-like scanners are so complex, there are more things that can go wrong
with them.
After less than two years, my speech-output scanner had to go across the
country for repairs, and then two more times over the next seven and a half
months.
In light of this inconvenience, I invested in a second scanner (of a different
brand) in order to have a backup. This second scanner then became my main
one. Three months after the warranty expired, it had to go to a neighboring
state for repairs -- then again after another six months. Because these scanners
are larger, shipping them for repairs is quite expensive. My Optacon, on the
other hand, only needed its first repair after seven years.
Now don't get me wrong; I am grateful for any means of being able to read
print, but as one who always preferred braille over talking books, I feel that
I (and others of the same persuasion) should be given a choice as to how we all
read printed materials. My plea: Someone out there with the know-how to
do so, please bring back the Optacon!
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