Hi Chuck!
Thanks for reminding me about the optacon III acting as a mouse.
I hope you find a programmer who is willing to work with you without
gouging you like that one did by wanting to raise his fee. People are
strange sometimes. I don't understand the way people act sometimes.
Debby
At 10:12 PM 7/29/2017, C. Pond wrote
Happily, as discussed months ago on the list, the optacon III's camera can
act as a mouse either for reading through a stored image on an SD card or
micro-SD card, or for reading the computer screen directly via the connected
optacon. When reading through a virtual paper in memory--so to speak--the
optacon III's display radically changes sound and vibration when the margins
of the image are reached. Something like Richard Oehm's and Al Alden's fine
auditory scope adapter. Yes indeed, me Stole the concept from their fine
work, albeit the design is software based. Hitting the virtual margins
sounds like the scope adapter when aliasing happens. Without a virtual
margin alert, and since there are no physical landmarks as with the edge of
a computer monitor or the page in a book, one might move the camera/mouse
aimlessly. This virtual margin is not difficult to do. The camera/mouse
can function as a mouse in the way a sightling would use a mouse except that
our's has the tactile feedback of the optacon. That part of the software is
not difficult; the numbers for each pixel under the mouse pointer as the
canera/mouse moves are simply "returned" to the "main" of the program. By
those two words in quotes one can tell that Chuckie is used to C & C++, and
assembler is also often used; makes for a lighter weight and more efficient
firmware, and with a single command C++ allows one to go into each aspect of
its host computing device and work with it on that level, basically one step
above machine language. Therefore, unlike screenreaders whereby the
application must be programmed with consistency and standardized even though
they Never are ("gollum, gollum"), the optacon III and its mouse/camera deal
on the most basic level with the screen content associated with the
camera/mouse according to the pixel elements on the screen. Of course, if
one so wishes, the camera can be placed against the screen as we do now.
Still having trouble with the best and most durable connectors, and also at
this point I do not know how to create what amounts to a tidy Windows
version of the optacon II's DOS software. I have been told by former Nortel
programmers and computer scientists that the task is not at all difficult.
.. Not for Them, anyway. Therefore, all the more unfortunate that the fine
engineering team (which included at least one fine programmer), and
financial donors, were scattered and have since disipated. I suppose I was
either naive, or idealistic, or inexperienced--likely all three, but I
should have made the two people (one in particular) who are no longer in
Ottawa sign something legal for the sake of accountability and for the
project. Well, often times the burned hand teaches best. So, if I recover
and regain strength, I will continue to search for a consie, efficient
goal-oriented programmer. Some time after the two who were to have done the
legal work, the paper work, the fund-raising, the website etc--and these
things they asked to do--I did link up with someone locally who is very
skilled. However, when he found out that I am blind (which in this case is
academic and should mean nothing as far as programming duties were
concerned), and also that I requested that he sign some legal work, he would
no longer work for the obligatory $17/hour, but insisted that I pay him
$40/hour for the very same tasks. I've seen this happen in other areas.
The aura and ethos of blindness somehow alters people's way of relating in a
way which they cannot seem to explain even unto themselves. So be it; we
move forward as we can.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Debby Franson
Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2017 10:01 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: What if ...
Hi Dave and Bruce!
Wow, this sounds like a cool idea. I would love to have something like this.
Debby
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