Our object this week is a very early
and very simple example of what now is called a refreshable braille display. Unlike
modern displays, which take digital files and convert them to braille, the Tellatouch
facilitated communication between a typist and a deaf-blind reader, one
character at a time.
Jackson Kleber was an electrical engineer who had worked
for both RCA and Bell Telephone. Laid off as a result of the Depression, he
came to work for the American Foundation for the Blind in 1932 to help continue
research efforts on the development of the "Talking Book."
AFB launched a major effort on
behalf of the deaf-blind in the mid 1940s. One of their first projects was an
electrical device that would allow a typist to sit on one side, facing a
standard keyboard. The machine would translate the keystrokes into a braille
symbol on a plate at the back of the machine, "where a deaf-blind person
could feel them with a fingertip." Kleber worked out the initial prototype.
It was later modified by another important AFB researcher, Clifford Witcher. Witcher’s
model, the Electro-braille Communicator—doesn’t that sound like something from
a steampunk novel?--failed in field testing and was withdrawn in 1952. Later
that year, Charles P. Tolman, a semi-retired engineer, was hired as AFB's
technical research chief. Tolman solved the machine's problems by converting it
from electrical to mechanical power and it was renamed the
"Tellatouch" in 1954. They came in several colors—this one is a burnt
orange. Tolman’s device looked like a portable manual typewriter. When you
pressed a key, metal pins were raised on a finger shaped array to create a
single braille cell.
No comments:
Post a Comment