by David Goldfield
From the Editor: I have lived through what I believe any fair-minded person would consider a special time. For the first fifteen years of my life, no one talked much about and certainly did not have a computer. Why a person would want one was a mystery. So those of us who used Braille wrote our draft school papers on a Perkins Brailler, read it to ourselves or a parent, realized it wasn’t good enough, and wrote a second draft that we hoped would be the final product. Of course, it wasn’t the final product, for those of us in public school had to put it in print so our sighted teachers could read it. When we thought about all of the work that went into those papers, we would take some time out to daydream: what if my teacher could read my latest Braille copy? What if I didn’t have to type it over again, this time on a machine whose output I could not see but would be graded on?
Some ten years after I was out of college, I went to the convention of the National Federation of the Blind, and there was this fellow selling a device that weighed about two pounds that he said would let me type in grade 2 Braille, listen to what I had typed, modify it to make it better, and then send it to a printer where it would be translated from grade 2 Braille into print. It turns out the man who brought that device had no real money of his own, had maxed out his credit cards, and had brought ten machines, which he demonstrated and promptly sold. He knew he was onto something when he left with enough orders to keep him busy for months, and with every happy customer came several more orders. For a time it seemed that blind people had more power on our laps than sighted folks had with their bulky computers, and all of a sudden a document was no longer Braille or print: it was either or both.
David Goldfield has been working in the assistive technology industry for over thirty years. His career began at Blazie Engineering, where he had several key responsibilities: he provided customer support, ensured product quality assurance, and wrote and proofread product documentation. He has also worked for two nonprofit organizations for the blind where he provided computer training to blind children and adults. He worked at Comcast for over seven years providing accessibility testing for the company’s apps and services. He is currently the marketing manager for Blazie Technologies, and this is what he has to say:
Back in 1987, Deane Blazie invented an exciting and revolutionary product called the Braille ‘n Speak. It was a small, compact, and user-friendly computer with a Braille keyboard providing speech output. With that product he created Blazie Engineering, a company many of us still fondly remember. People still miss the Braille ‘n Speak and wish that we had something similar today. Deane Blazie felt the same way and that wish has now come true. He has invented a new product, a new company but with many familiar names from the days of Blazie Engineering who remembered the days when Deane and his staff provided personalized support to its customers by phone as well as by email.
The company’s staff includes some familiar names, including Bryan Blazie as CEO and Deane Blazie who is the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Deane’s other sons, Chris and Stephen, are some of the people providing software development.
The new product is called the BT Speak and is available to order from Blazie Technologies. The BT Speak will be familiar to those who remember the Braille ‘n Speak, but it will be user-friendly for those who don’t. It uses an eight-dot Braille keyboard along with speech output. You can create and edit documents and can even write using UEB or the older EBAE (Grade 2) Braille code. Using familiar chorded commands you’ll be able to insert, delete, as well as cut and paste text. The BT Speak also comes with other applications, including a dictionary, a scientific calculator, and calendar appointment features. In addition, it also contains a desktop mode where you can access powerful PC-style applications including: