Michael A. Terrell wrote:
D Yuniskis wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
N_Cook wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote in message
Once again proving what an asshole you can be. I know a ham radio
operator who is completely blind. He can touch type and uses text to
speech software to use E-mail nd browse the web. Another ham taught him
to assemble a computer form scratch, and install the OS and application
software after his asshole boss made a comment about how F'ing useless
the blind ham was. The funny part was the blind ham assembled & set up
the computer faster that the friend's boss who owned the computer store.

I met him about 15 years ago when he had computer problems, and had
let Best Buy work on it since they were only a few miles away, and my
shop was over an hour away. They had installed two additional HD
controller cards along with the original, all set for the same base
address and IRQs. I pulled the new cards and found a minor problem,
then sent him on his way.
Its probably easier for blind contributors on Usenet than practically
anywhere else on the www because of all the bloated sites /frames / flash
mangling and obscuring whatever info is buried in there. Usenet having
Exactly. Note that there are some (voluntary) standards that
people can adopt to make "blind friendly" web pages, etc.
(e.g., "Bobby Approved"). However, it is painfully obvious that
most sites are geared towards the sighted.

I had a Bell's Palsy in my right eye in May of 2008. My left eye is
mostly for decoration, so I was almost blind for eight months, and could
only see what was visible out of the bottom left corner of my right eye,
and only when I could hold the lid open with my fingers. It was late
last year that I regained full control of that eye.

This is one of the early symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis (I am
not claiming that you have MG -- just drawing a parallel).
But, with Bell's, don't you also tear a lot? I.e., so you
almost *have* to actively close your eye to blink away the
tears...

I write HTML in Wordpad to keep the pages compact and fast. I use the
bare minimum of code, both for the visually impaired, and those who have
to use older computers & browsers.

Understood. But even things like page format/layout
can be confounding. E.g., trying to recognize columns (think:
frames within a page) is very hard for someone not
"seeing" the page.

You will also discover -- should you ever try to use the
"disability features" in your Mac/PC -- how clumsy these
interfaces can be. Turn your monitor off and see just
how well *you* can adapt grin

Without text to voice and the ability to touch type, it's worthless.

My point is that even *with* text-to-speech (TTS), it is
very hard for most people to process information. Many
people are highly visual oriented. And, have, after a lifetime,
developed their skillsets oriented towards processing information
in this way.

Try, for example, to have a page of text *read* to you
and see how much of it you comprehend afterwards. Then,
realize that you can't just flick your "ears" back a few
paragraphs to review what you heard "back then" -- which
is something we constantly do with our eyes as we rescan
text that has previously been read for clarifications, etc.

started with test-only terminals and 400 baud or so modems.
Maybe 300 baud? (400 isn't a standard baud rate)

Are there stand alone DVMs with voiced output ?, pc scopes with descriptive
text ?
There are DVMs with a serial port.
Yes. But then you need a speech synthesizer that has a serial
port (DECTalk, DECTalk express, etc.). Or, nowadays, a speech
synthesizer running on your PC tethered to the DMM, etc.

Someone had written a simple 'serial to text' terminal program for
those type DVMs a few years ago.

Ah, cool! But, you still need a PC just to read your DMM.
I.e., there is a big inconvenience involved. I get annoyed
when I don't have enough room for my 5.5 digit DMM and have
to resort to using a Simpson VOM just because it's smaller.
(yeah, I really should buy an El Cheapo pocket sized DMM
but it seems a waste when I have so many others...)

I imagine there are electronic repairers with poor sight , but are there any
blind repairers?
I've known a couple who were legally blind. They could make out some
Note that there is a difference between "legally blind" and "blind".

I have been on the edge of legally blind all my life. I am not
allowed to drive without my glasses. My vision was below 20/200 &

grin Well, *technically* I can't drive without glasses, either
but that's just because the law (here) requires vision corrected
to 20/20 in order to drive. If I had to get to the hospital in
a hurry and didn't have my eyeglasses handy, I'd have no worse
problem than any other driver (especially those "handicapped"
by having a cell phone glued to their ear!)

20/400 when I entered the US Army in the '70s and has become worse over
the decades since.

20/200 is pretty bad. I know a gentleman who is in that shape
now. At 12 feet he is effectively "blind".

Also, the cause of blindness and its relative onset in life play
a big factor. For example, those blind from birth adjust differently
than those losing their vision later in life from things like
diabetic retinopathy (e.g., learning Braille in your 60's may
just not be an option -- especially with the neurological
damage that accompanies a disease like diabetes).

I'm on Gabapentin for Diabetic Neuropathy.

Hmmm... I thought gabapentin was for epilepsy? shrug
IANAD so I'm just recalling things from memory. Maybe
used for anything neurological?

things with special glasses, but they only worked with simple, tube
Decades ago, I worked on the Kurzweil Reading Machine (a device
that "reads books" to the visually impaired). At the time, it
was implemented with a minicomputer (i.e., the size of a
dishwasher) and a hand-built scanner (consumer scanners did
not exist back then). It was not uncommon for us to talk
a blind client through the process of disassembling the
minicomputer to the point where boards could be reseated
or swapped out. Nowadays, isn't that all *real* "factory
service personnel" do?? frown

Not at the factory. I troubleshot MC68340 based embedded controller
boards we built in house. I hand soldered 288 pin ICs under a stereo
microscope for several years. Then I was moved to our newest product, a
VME based telemetry receiver with several DSP & FIR filters per board.
You don't scrap new $8,000 boards if you can prevent it.

Yes, I was being facetious. My point was that a blind man can
still do some checking and repair/replacement. E.g., "Can you
verify that all of the cables are fully seated? Can you hear
the scanner motor starting up and the carriage moving across
the machine? etc."

My experience with visually impaired individuals is that they
have to rely on memory a lot more than sighted folks do. Whether
it is remembering where something is on/in a device or remembering
how to do something or remembering where they *put* something.

I have found working with deaf people to be much more difficult.
Sight is highly directional. So, we have other senses that
compensate and alert us to things that are not in front of us
(i.e., not in front of our eyes). Hearing being primary among
them. Try getting a deaf person's attention if they are not
looking in your general direction...! :-/

based equipment. Another tech I knew was handicapped. His arms were
severely twisted, and he couldn't hold his head upright. It leaned about
45 degrees to his right, so he would lean even further to his right to
repair tube radios & TVs. I wonder what happened to them? It's been
over 30 years since I've seen any of them.

Meat Plow is an angry little man with a huge chip on his shoulder.
He should stay on alt.usenet.kooks, where he came from.