[BNU] Opinion piece: flash disk size versus braille display length: are we asking the wrong question?

From: "Joseph Lee" <joseph.lee22590@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2015 16:18:21 -0800

Dear BNU members, Humanware staff and others,

For the past few days, members here were asking, "is free space on flash
disk related to length of the braille display?" The answers to this survey
shows it actually doesn't. Although some data may show that it does to some
extent, when we look at how flash disk capacity is calculated and other
factors, I would say the survey may have no merits (sorry for the word
usage).

First, flash disk is a different peripheral to braille display. If each
braille display cell contained some small amounts of flash memory embedded
in it, then it might be able to explain small differences in flash disk
capacity. However, current notetaker hardware construction (for that matter,
computer system build) says flash disk and braille display are separate
peripherals, with braille display treated as an add-on component (see the
second point). Also, braille displays are output devices, so they cannot
hold extra flash disk chips.

Second, flash disks have varying quality and endurance specifications
between models and among individual chips. Given a group of
identical-looking flash disks (all of same model), one may have fewest bad
flash cells compared to others, while another may have used a different
internal component. But if there is one thing that may distinguish one chip
from another, it's the manufactured date - although they have been
manufactured on the same date, each of them may have been fabricated at
different hours of the day.

Third, the survey did not take into account that VoiceNote Apex users may
have larger free space on flash disk than BrailleNote Apex models. If
VoiceNote users report lower capacities, then we do have a likely evidence
that the hypothesis is true (which says people who have a shorter braille
display have smaller flash disk capacity, which may mean VoiceNote users may
have lot less capacity). However, given that no answers were given by
VoiceNote users (no braille display) and since capacity and quality of flash
disk varies even among devices with same braille display length, I'd like to
challenge the survey's assumptions: there is no correlation between braille
display length and flash disk capacity.

Since the above evidence nullifies the survey data, an important question we
should ask ourselves is, "are we asking the wrong question?" I believe we
did ask the wrong question: I think a more appropriate question might be,
"when did someone receive the unit in question?" That way, the question of
flash disk capacity variations now becomes looking at variations of flash
disk's health and production date - a refurbished or a demo unit may not
necessarily have a new flash disk chip installed, especially for demo units,
and older a device, more cells on the flash disk would have failed or about
to fail, possibly reducing capacity (I'll not go into details on how flash
disk/memory actually works, and no, it is way different from how a
conventional hard disks work).

Thanks.

Cheers,

Joseph

[BNU] Opinion piece: flash disk size versus braille display length: are we asking the wrong question?

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