[bcab] Laptops and Focus Braille displays

Hi All,

So I've more or less decided to buy a laptop for mobile work use.  I'm
wondering whether if I got hold of a focus 40 Braille display, I'd be
able to more or less just use the keyboard on the focus display for
note-taking, with the laptop running notepad.  What I'm trying to
achieve is a replacement for a Braille lite which can do Wi-Fi, can run
VPN and security software, but is also fairly easy to use for
straightforward Braille note-taking.  It occurred to me that I could
just use the focus display in "typing" mode, i.e. what you type on its
keyboard gets entered as text rather than initiating a function.  I
could then keep the laptop lid down to conserve power, and more or less
use the Focus like a braille-lite, until I want to do something more
complex like run Outlook, in which case I'd open the lid of the laptop
and use the native keyboard.

What I'm not sure of, is whether you can send all the necessary key
combinations from the Focus keyboard e.g. ALT-Tab.  Also the drain on a
battery would be fairly crucial as a factor in deciding whether or not
this was feasible.  I'm thinking about the Toshiba Portage, and would be
interested in any views on whether the battery in this type of machine
would be likely to cope with a few hours running in a meeting
environment driving a Focus display via USB connection.

Can anyone else think of any reason why this is a really bad idea or
wouldn't work?

Regards, and thanks,

Tim

Tim Pennick
tel:    01473 609040
BTnet:  00 1609040
email:  tim.pennick@xxxxxx


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