[access-uk] Re: Happy 20th Birthday, JAWS for Windows

  • From: Saqib Hussain <saqibh23@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:12:59 +0000

Hi. I could never justify the cost of Jaws so I went for System Access
7 years ago. I still now couldn't get use to using Jaws because my own
screenreader does everything so well for me and it just flows.

On 29/01/2015, Eleanor Martha Burke <eleanormarthaburke@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I found when I started at the Opoen University, they knew all about JAWS as
>
> a screen reader and had it loaded on computers for accessability at some
> courses I attended but they didn't have a clue about Dolphin Supernova which
>
> is my screen reader on Windows.  While people do knock it, its great
> advantage is the magnification and speech together.  True there is Magic
> which can be used in conjunction with JAWS but at such a price!  Nobody has
>
> mentioned Zoomtext, though it has magnification and speech I favour Dolphin
>
> Supernova above it.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Derek Hornby" <derek.hornby_uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 7:12 PM
> Subject: [access-uk] Re: Happy 20th Birthday, JAWS for Windows
>
>
>> Well  I think most Jaws customers  are employers of the users!
>> or the  customers are the  government as in say access to work.
>>
>> So most users won't care how much jaws costs,  if not paying
>> personally!
>>
>> Derek
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf Of Mike Ray
>> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 12:17 PM
>> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [access-uk] Re: Happy 20th Birthday, JAWS for Windows
>>
>>
>> And I don't suppose anybody else who is an avid Jaws user can afford
>> to
>> throw a party, after paying for the thing.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 29/01/2015 10:42, Jackie Brown wrote:
>>> Wish I could throw a party, but I have no inclination! (smile).
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>>
>>> Jackie Brown
>>> Emails: thebrownsplace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Jackieannbrown62@xxxxxxxxx
>>> jackie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Website: www.thebrownsplace.info
>>> Twitter: @thebrownsplace
>>> Skype: thejackmate
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf Of
>>> Colin Howard
>>> Sent: 28 January 2015 20:26
>>> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: [access-uk] Happy 20th Birthday, JAWS for Windows
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>>
>>> Seen on the VicugL group, thought it may be of interest! Shows how
>> rapidly
>>> time passes!
>>>
>>> From: David Goldfield <david.goldfield@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:46:24 -0500
>>>
>>> Episode 102 of Freedom Scientific's FSCast podcast reminds us that
>> 2015
>>> marks the 20th anniversary of the JAWS for Windows screen reader. In
>> fact,
>>> Jonathan Mosen reminds us that January is, in fact, the month in
>> which JAWS
>>> turned 20. I remember installing and using JFW 1.0 back in  January
>> of 1995
>>> and I thought I'd dedicate this short blog post to some  of my early
>>> memories of that product and of that time in general.
>>>
>>> In 1995, I was working for Blazie Engineering providing technical
>> support.
>>> Windows 3.1 was a fairly well-established operating system with
>> several
>>> Windows screen readers already available, including Blazie's own
>> Windows
>>> Master which I believe was already out at that time. While I had
>> used
>>> Windows 3.1 and was familiar with it on a very basic level, I was a
>> edicated
>>> DOS user. While I was very familiar with Vocal-eyes and JAWS for
>> DOS, ASAP
>>> from Microtalk was my screen reader of choice, along with a trusty
>> Braille
>>> 'n Speak as my speech synthesizer.
>>> It was during the end of 1994 or the very beginning of 1995 when we
>> received
>>> our boxed copy of JAWS for Windows 1.0, with January 19, 1995 being
>> the
>>> official launch date of that product. If you really want to read a
>> piece of
>>> classic assistive technology history, you can, courtesy of the
>> Internet
>>> Archive's Wayback Machine, read the December 1994 Henter-Joyce
>> newsletter
>>> which, among other things, contains the big announcement regarding
>> JFW 1.0.
>>>
>>> Around this time, I found out I had enlarged tonsils which needed to
>> be
>>> removed. As I constantly used my voice to do my job, it was
>> recommended I
>>> stay home for two weeks during my recuperation. This was, I decided,
>> the
>>> perfect time to finally dive into Windows 3.1 with our new copy of
>> JAWS for
>>> Windows, version 1.0.
>>>
>>> The box contained a collection of cassette tapes with tutorials
>> recorded by
>>> Eric Damery and Ted Henter. Eric's voice is very familiar to JAWS
>> users as
>>> he annually introduces the new features which are being added to new
>> JAWS
>>> versions. Eric has participated in these recordings since the very
>> beginning
>>> of JFW and, even in the 1.0 days, was a fabulous and professional
>> presenter.
>>> I think the product was often referred to as JFW or JAWS for Windows
>> more
>>> than it is today as Henter-Joyce wanted to distinguish it from the
>> other
>>> JAWS product which ran on DOS machines.
>>> Once I listened to some of the tutorials, I installed the product
>> onto my
>>> Windows 3.1 machine from the included 3.5 inch floppy disks,
>> followed by the
>>> authorization key, also on a floppy, a form of copy protection I had
>>> previously never heard of and was having some difficulty wrapping my
>> mind
>>> around. After all, in those days most software packages never had
>> any sort
>>> of copy protection; you installed it and then used it.
>>> Well, the installation and authorization process went smoothly and,
>> soon
>>> thereafter, I had JFW working with my trusty Bns 640. After all, for
>> the
>>> most part we had no software-based synthesizers at that time and so
>> you
>>> needed a bns, Accent, Artic, Audapter, Dec-talk or Doubletalk to get
>> speech,
>>> with no Braille support at that time.
>>> They wanted JFW to feel like JAWS for DOS by giving it a PC cursor
>> as well
>>> as a JAWS cursor. It included the insert-G hotkey to label graphics
>> and the
>>> insert-T hotkey to read the window title, two features we didn't
>> really need
>>> in DOS. Insert-down arrow was the "say all" key and the other keys
>> on the
>>> numeric keypad tried to emulate what we were used to with JFD. I
>> remember
>>> this first version crashing quite a lot but this was quickly fixed
>> in an
>>> update which I probably downloaded from the Henter-Joyce BBS.
>>>
>>> If you're curious about what was added in JFW 2.0, you can go to
>> their
>>> announcement on an old version of the Henter-Joyce home page, also
>> courtesy
>>> of the Internet Archive.
>>> Those early versions would have seemed so limited to us compared to
>> what we
>>> have today, but back then it was cutting-edge technology. The JAWS
>> cursor
>>> could only move within the active window. When using the Internet,
>> you had
>>> to press insert-f5 to reformat the page, which you read using the
>> JAWS
>>> cursor. You couldn't freely navigate through a Web page using
>> standard
>>> reading commands with the PC cursor the way you can with any screen
>> reader
>>> today. If my memory is correct, that capability didn't get
>> implemented until
>>> version 3.31. In fact, the ability to use single letter navigation
>> keys,
>>> such as pressing H for heading or N to jump to the next block of
>> text wasn't
>>> even implemented until a later version, probably around 3.5.
>>> What more can I say, except a happy 20th birthday to JFW, or JAWS as
>> we now
>>> call it. JAWS has certainly come a long way in the past 20 years. I
>> wonder
>>> what it will be like 20 years from now. I'm sure that it will be
>> supporting
>>> Windows 43 or whatever OS Microsoft will have pushed out to us and
>> we'll all
>>> have fond memories of running our screen readers on those ancient,
>> primitive
>>> Windows 7 computers. It's too bad that the Internet Archive doesn't
>> supply
>>> us with snapshots of pages from the future.
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Michael A. Ray
>> Analyst/Programmer
>> Witley, Surrey, South-east UK
>>
>> Don't judge my disability until you witness my ability
>>
>> Interested in accessibility on the Raspberry Pi?
>> Visit: http://www.raspberryvi.org/
>> From where you can join our mailing list for visually-impaired Pi
>> hackers
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-- 
You can find me on Twitter @Saq5000 and Skype Saq5000
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