You know, I think I have told this before, but back in the 70's, TSI had a
representative in the Houston area. He came to my office at the hospital and
brought the display screen along with a master-slave cord. He connected my
Optacon to the screen and had me read first from the PDR, then from a carbon
report.
First of all, the girls in the office were literally astounded at how fast the
letters flew across the screen, as I read out loud. They could not tell,
because they could not keep up with the letters going across the screen. Then
they could see the difference on the screen of the look of a carbon and could
realize that it showed up for me like it did for them.
At that time, we had IBM Correcting Selectric typewriters and had to correct
our own work. I had to keep my lift off things labeled by color. This was in
pathology, so you would have to continue a report after microscopic
examination, and sometimes have to "revise," as they called it the gross
description. Usually it did not have to be retyped, but without an Optacon, I
could not have lined it up and made the corrections. The copies had to go to
doctors and our file and the original to the patient's charts.
Then, if there was quite a bit that had to be changed, the identifying
information, which was on a form and the gross description would have to be
retyped. I did that using my Optacon. Thankfully, that was a busy office with a
lot going on, so no one seemed to think anything about the noise of the thing.
They were just glad I could get my work done. At that hospital, if you could
not correct work, you could not work there. There was another transcriptionist
there, who did not have an Optacon, and his wife did his after they punched
out. He told me that down in Medical Records, there were so many typewriter
bells that rang that he had to be careful not to enter on someone else's bell.
I don't guess my hearing was all that good then, because I don't remember
having that problem. There weren't as many typewriters going simultaneously
where I was as where he was.
Bye for now,
Carolyn
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of Dan Tevelde
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2016 7:56 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: R: Re: Optacon works where OCR fails
Hello All,
I never became a very proficient optacon user because I knew that the unit I
had was just on loan for the duration of high school. Once I returned the unit
to the government, I didn't give the optacon a second thought until I became a
programmer, and found that there were times I needed to read something which an
OCR program couldn't scan, or the document was some kind of flow chart.
Producing graphics with a Braille embosser is very time-consuming. There have
been a few times when I have wanted to print out some mainframe program output,
and then review it just like my sighted co-workers do. I would also find an
optacon useful in deciphering foreign language characters. This is especially
true now that the new UEB Braille code has confused foreign language symbol
representation. I used to know what Spanish letters with accent marks looked
like, but now I have forgotten and have know way of re-learning.
It is also sad that some people have been shut down by mailing list moderators
when they tried to discuss the future of the optacon. I think one thing our
list members might consider is getting sighted assistance in making videos to
put on YouTube. People could get the word out by posting videos to YouTube,
and then sharing them on Facebook and Twitter. It might even be possible to
create an optacon Facebook page or Twitter feed. There are already some videos
on YouTube about the optacon but I think they are rather dated. Videos are
things which sighted people pay attention to. Blind people also pay attention
to social media so this would be an important way to tell others about the
optacon.
Dan
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Fran <fran.italy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I hardly use the Optacon anymore these days, but if I didn't own one I would
feel lost and so vulnerable...!
I absolutely don't trust OCRs as they cannot replace the human brain. They
work great with very clear writing, but if a letter is not legible, they
simply can't figure it out. Artificial intelligence has come along way, and I
love all of it! But nothing can replace my brain's ability to interpret.
Also, when I need to tackle a weird text produced by an OCR that didn't
perform well, I'm often able to supply the correct words, because knowing
what print looks like, I can often figure out what the OCR saw to yield that
incomprehensible string of letters :)
Fran
-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] ;
Per conto di Maureen Hogg
Inviato: lunedì 26 settembre 2016 11:47
A: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oggetto: [optacon-l] Re: Optacon works where OCR fails
I'll second all of that, Anne! Thanks to the Optacon, I was able to puruse a
minor in French at university. That led to my first job as a technical
translator for an American company with interests in Algeria.
That same company later hired me to work in its aerospace division. The rest
is history. I pursued a highly successful career with Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp., which spanned 30 years and 15 awards. I only used a
refreshable braille display with MS products for the last seven years of that
career. It was the Optacon that gave me access to a DEC VT-100 using MASS
11, then on to Macs and PCs.
Did i say I was proficient with the Optacon?
Smiles!
Maureen
On 9/25/2016 2:02 AM, Anne Robertson wrote:
Hello,
I couldn’t imagine coping without my optacon. I first saw an optacon when I
was 21 years old and attending the RNIB secretarial college in London. My
roommate had an optacon and I was desperate to learn to use it.
She persuaded her optacon teacher to give me some lessons, and I took to it
like a duck to water.
However, I had to wait another six years to have an optacon allocated to me
for work. In the meantime, I had earned a degree in French and decided to be
a computer programmer. Back then, in Britain, programmers were given
optacons.
Since my optacon training had been informal, an optacon teacher was sent to
verify that I was able to use the device. It didn’t take long for me to
prove that no further training was necessary.
The optacon allowed me to work efficiently as a programer for the next 15
years, and as a translator after that.
These days, my iPhone has taken over many of the duties of the optacon, but
if I had to choose, I would take the optacon over any other technology.
Cheers,
Anne
