[access-uk] Re: Optacon Question
- From: "Wendy Sharpe" <w.sharpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 02:53:07 -0000
Ari
How long have you got! The reason given for stopping manufacture was that
people were using flat-bed scanners and computers to read print. This, in
the opinion of Optacon users, was no excuse at all. There is nothing like
the Optacon for all kinds of reading applications.
At work I would have been at the mercy of sighted colleagues if I had not
been able to check printed out material. I always carefully proof-read
everything on the PC before running it off, but speech couldn?t tell me how
the pages would come out. I could check layout, headings, whether bold and
underline were in the right places, or whether I had forgotten to turn them
off and they needed amending. A scanner wouldn?t tell you that.
At home I use my Optacon every day of my life. I check the post to see if
any of those junk leaflets might be important. I read labels on my meals so
that I know what is going to come out of the oven and how to cook it. I
read instructions for new products I have bought. Some can be scanned, but
not all. I find out whether two identical bottles are shampoo or
conditioner, and what a tin contains, be it soup, baked beans or fruit.
When I get a parcel of products from a company I have shopped with online, I
want to know which item is which, so I use my Optacon to find out. When I
get a new CD or DVD, I read its title, author and other information before
making a braille label.
When the post arrives I often read letters and bills before filing away. I
could scan them, but often the scanner doesn?t read as accurately as the
Optacon. Often print is fancy, and the Optacon may not help in all
circumstances, but it is invaluable in most cases. If I get a bottle of
medicine, I want to know more about it so I use the Optacon to find out
whether the label can be read. Some of the leaflets in medicine boxes are
very small print, but with patience and perseverance the Optacon often tells
me much more than a scanner can.
There is a project underway called New Optacon, but I don?t know how far it
has got. I think it is a German initiative, and they are trying to produce
a machine with similar functionality.
Optacons were very expensive, costing £3,000 or more. When the concept was
first introduced from the USA, RNIB, for reasons best known to themselves,
were very anti. I didn?t get mine until 1984 after a big fight with the
forerunner of Access to Work and the RNIB. I knew very well that this was
the window I needed to open on the print world, so I battled on till I won
the day.
You can now occasionally get Optacons second-hand for a few hundred pounds,
although most of us wouldn?t part with them for millions. Dave Godfrey at
Blazie is the only person in the UK who can service and repair them.
Because they are no longer made, the biggest problem is the cable between
the camera and the main unit. This has 24 pairs of wires inside, and it is
no longer being made, so Dave has to use cables from dead machines or
shorten the cable on your machine if it has become broken. This is the main
thing which happens. The wires inside the cable are very fine and delicate,
and with frequent use tend to fracture. Fortunately, this usually occurs at
one end or the other, so repair is not too difficult, but the lack of new
supplies is a source of worry.
Training involved learning to scan straight along lines of print with the
camera, and if you didn?t know before, learning what print actually looked
like so that you could discern the shapes of the letters as they passed
under your left index finger. It was estimated to take a month to train,
but I got through in eight days. To begin with it is very slow, but with
practice speed increased, and there are some users who can get up to 100
words per minute or more. This may not be as fast as reading braille or
sighted people reading print, but it is adequate for most of us.
What I felt when I took my Optacon home was sheer joy at being able to read
my private correspondence without having to ask anyone else for help. I
also had a camera fitted to a typewriter which enabled me to fill in cheques
to pay bills and fill in all kinds of forms. This gave me more independence
at work as well as at home. Before computers came in, the Optacon was the
greatest aid to independent living and working that had ever come out of the
USA.
The whole idea arose from a father who was determined that his blind
daughter would be able to read print for herself. It took ten years of
research at Stamford University in California to devise the best method,
hence the high price. In its heyday there were Optacons all over the world,
and those of us who have benefited from this wonderful machine cannot
understand why it is no longer made. A scanner won?t read a round bottle,
or tell you how a page is laid out. If you are studying a language with
different script, such as Hebrew, you can look at the different letters and
learn what they sound like.
I could go on and on, but others may have something to contribute, so I will
leave it here. If you want one, Ari, I don?t know if there is anyone who
can train you to use it, but anyone with enough intelligence will, I am
sure, be able to follow the lines and get to grips with print.
Wendy
_____
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
ari
Sent: 31 October 2007 18:43
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Optacon Question
Hi all,
Today, for the first time, although I'd heard about it many times before, I
saw an Optacon! Wow, I was so amazed at it, it's very interesting! I want to
understand why it isn't being made anymore, I'd have thought blind people
would be running to buy them, I definitely would. Is there anything like it
out there?
Ari
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