buying braille display

[John Heim]

So you can read braille books from the NLS on your Pac Mate? I am interested 
in combining functions.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lee Maschmeyer" <lee_maschmeyer at wayne.edu>
To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list at redhat.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: buying braille display


> 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
>
>
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