[Ham-Computers] Re Upgrades Windows 98 And Spell Check

[Duane Fischer]

Ron,

Even though my comment was tongue in cheek, unless you are a highly trained
programmer Ron, it is highly unlikely that you can comprehend the reasons why the
ASCII system was vastly superior to the GUI that Windows now uses, in respect to
the blind when conversion of the screen into a speakable form is necessary.

Ron, I am in 'no' way intending to say anything critical of you or to offend you
in any way. I am simply pointing out the underlying reason why what you suggest
is not practical for those needing adaptive software of any kind, for 'now'.
Hopefully somebody will get real serious Ron and develop a viable alternative to
the IBM and Macintosh concepts and give computer users a third possible OS
choice.

Suffice it to say: Before a computer with adaptive technology came along and gave
the blind a level of independence never before possible, or even dreamed of, our
high tech consisted of Braille, a White Cane or Guide Dog, National Library of
Congress "Talking Book" program and for those who were taught by the Japanese or
Chinese, the Abacus. The concept of the graphic based OS first marketed by , who,
Apple? Or? Was, and is, a direct threat to all who use text to speech software
and hardware speech synthesizers. Get this, guess how long it was from the time
Windows first came on the market until a third party invented, designed and wrote
the first Windows screen reading software program? How about five years!

Apple resisted, or avoided, doing anything with their systems prior to the
Macintosh to assist the blind. What they did have was worse than crude and almost
totally useless. So the Macintosh itself posed no 'immediate' threat, as they did
not use adaptive speech support then. But MS did impact the blind because of the
new GUI concept. What had been used to create lower/upper case letters, numbers
and punctuation marks and allowed the blind almost complete freedom to use a
computer was suddenly terminated. The technology that had given the blind this
tremendous gift of independence was killed! Nothing worked anymore. Nor would it
ever again, at least not until somebody somewhere invented a totally new way to
'see' the graphic symbols with no names in the English language and invent a new
way to convert them into a form that could be synthesized and spoken. Think of it
as having your name being a symbol that has no sound associated with it and no
word in the language to refer to it. You see it, but nobody can hear it. That is
exactly the difference between DOS and Windows based Operating Systems.

As Windows continues to be refined and more and more nameless graphic symbols are
created, the amount of independence handicapped users have steadily decreases. It
may not be unrealistic to say that the ability for a visually handicapped person
to use a computer may soon be only a memory.