‘The technology that speaks for itself’

Fellow Readers,

As promised, the 3rd article from a blind writer:

by Tresa Martin

Imagine, if you will, a young girl raised in a small, dusty Texas town, her natural curiosity about the world continually fueled by her inherited love of reading.{{more}} One of her earliest memories was of sitting on the arm of an overstuffed chair, staring at the book her mother held and wondering how those little black squiggly lines could possibly mean anything. From the proud day she read her first book, through all her years in school, this girl devoured books like candy. The procurement of her own library card was indeed a momentous occasion.

Now, imagine this same girl beginning to have some difficulty reading, because the lines are blurring, no matter how close she holds the book. Soon, the standard print books are given up for large print ones, which are cumbersome, but much easier to see. Her choice of books and reference materials are becoming limited though, because large print books are not as abundant.

Then the day comes that even the largest print books are not enough and her reading is further limited by books on tape.

She is able to enjoy a fairly large selection of books, however, from the Texas State Library for the Blind. But reference material such as encyclopedias and dictionaries are hard to come by. The girl copes with this though, as well, for she has many supportive family members who are eager to help her as she moves through the school years.

Graduation comes and she does well, graduating in a respectable top percentage of her class. To be a writer is her secret dream, but it is rather difficult because although she could type, the inability to see what she had written was a hindrance. She could record her story on tape and then type it, but this entailed a multitude of starts and stops that were annoying to say the least. So, she puts this notion off for the time being and gets on with the business of life.

I was this girl, and in 1977 I married. My husband was visually impaired also, but we managed our life together quite well. One year later, the condition became worse and I lost my vision completely. Undeniably, it was a hard lick and it did take some time to adjust, but I succeeded and it wasn’t, after all, the end of the world. The birth of our only child kept me more than busy and I was happy.

As the years passed, computers began to be widely used and I was envious of those who had them. It just seemed to be something I would truly be fascinated with, if given a chance. But then one day, the chance came and I experienced something wonderful.

The Texas State Commission for the Blind, which had been very helpful in the past with things like talking thermometers and cooking equipment with raised measurement lines, invited my husband and me to try out talking computers. I was enthralled and very intrigued. Best of all, I discovered I was eligible to own one of these marvelous wonders of technology, free of charge. At the time, the software that made the speech possible was only for DOS, but soon Windows entered the picture and the software changed to accommodate it.

Now, as people tend to do, I yearned for something more. I wanted badly to experience the Internet. So, my ever-resourceful husband made all the adjust-l Continued from pervious page

-ments and upgrades that were required and we signed up. Let me tell you, I was one frustrated human being for the first month or two of Internetdom. Nothing made sense. I was trying to learn an updated speech program, Windows and understand Netscape all at the same time. I was beginning to despair and ready to throw the whole set-up out the window, when one day it all clicked and everything made sense.

Well, as much sense as is possible when alluding to computers and the Internet, that is. I was in heaven. Remember the girl who delighted in being able to look up material in reference books? Well, I was back and the world was at my fingertips. Remember the girl that secretly wanted to be a writer? It was now possible and all the research I wanted to do was just waiting out there for me to board the cyber train to knowledge. It has opened so many doors for me that I thought were closed and changed my life in so many positive ways.

My hope is that anyone with visual problems will have the luck I did. The wonderful state and federal programs, which are geared to acquire computers and special software for people like me, are responsible for many students and working persons broadening their horizons; but there are many people who, for one reason or another, don’t qualify for aid and this software is very expensive. Maybe someday, it will be available to everyone that needs or wants it.

About the Author

Tresa Martin lives in Alabama with her husband Che, who is the developer and owner of Blind Adrenaline Simulations, a blind accessible game site. She is a medical transcriptionist by day, writer and avid game player by night.

Dr Kenneth Onu is a resident Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Beachmont Eye Institute/Eyes R Us Send questions to: Beachmont@gmail.com

Tel: 784 456-1210