buying braille display

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Hi John,

Perhaps the first thing to know about braille displays is that they come in 
different lengths (number of characters on the braille line). Back in the 
days of DOS an 80-character display made sense since the screens in those 
days were 80 characters wide. Since screens are no longer limited to 80 
characters there seems less of a reason to have such a huge display. (Note 
that I've never had an 80-character display so am not talking from 
experience in this decision.) For me, 40 characters is better. I don't want 
to go with less than 40 because I spend a lot of time reading braille books 
from NLS and they're formatted pretty close to 40 characters. Though shorter 
displays are cheaper they might be awkward reading a 40-character braille 
line and the programming might or might not be able to get around this 
satisfactorily; again I've used only 40-character displays.

As you mentioned, there are notetakers and there are just plain displays. 
The only notetaker I have experience with is the PAC Mate. I like this 
because I can detach the braille portion and use it with my desktop; both 
brltty and Windows screenreaders deal very well with this. The PAC Mate as a 
notetaker is pretty good too; the braille display attaches securely to it 
and makes a single physical unit that is easy to carry and use when I'm away 
from my desk.

I've never been to CSUN, but it's coming up in March and I can't imagine 
they would have a shortage of hardware to examine.

HTH,

-- 
Lee Maschmeyer
<lee_maschmeyer at wayne.edu>

"Be kind to your fur-bearing friends,
For a skunk may be somebody's brother."
     --Fred Allen