I'd agree from the viewpoint that most manufacturers design a range of products centred on a flagship that takes most of the R&D budget and a range of "lesser" models built on the same technology. Cheers. Tim -----Original Message----- From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of W. Nick Dotson Sent: 24 November 2005 17:26 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Accessible keyboards? You're exactly on the right page here with an understanding of the technical and human engineering that the "I want it now crowd" don't seem to have... My bet though, is that an initial product offering with something new like this, which gets down into the basic guts of the design of the product wioo, initially, at least, probably only be offered on premium "flagship" units... There, because of the myriad bells and whistles already incorporated into the product, the profit margin per unit, and perceived amortization of the initial cost of incorporating the design change can be more easily hidden in the product cost and amortized... Nick On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:15:20 -0000, Tim Burgess wrote: Hi Nick, This is exactly what I'm trying to achieve by using some key contacts within Yamaha. I know I'm winning the argument within the organisation and, once done, I can then use Yamaha's leverage to approach the MIDI Manufacturers Association to try and get text output written into the next available revision of the MIDI standard. I think what's not being appreciated here is the time scales involved for product life cycles and corporate culture changes. From a pure programming point of view, implementing this kind of functionality into a brand new piece of kit is pretty simple (probably a day or two's work for somebody who knows what they're doing). However, this is the end of the road, not the start. The starting point for all of this is to get the requirement for the functionality agreed by the board of the manufacturer - this will ensure that the requirement is then included in every design brief that the engineers draw up so it'll get incorporated into the products. On top of this a separate thread needs to be created so that this new functionality is incorporated into product testing and after-sales support. This latter requirement is probably more of a problem as it requires testers and support staff having an appreciation of the problem being addressed so that flaws can be caught and corrected before stuff goes out of the door, etc.. All in all, my estimate for seeing any new product incorporating this stuff would be a minimum of two years, with the clock starting to tick at the point when the board approved the idea (which is the first and biggest hurdle we've got to jump). The prize for us all here is enormous but the economics are marginal from the manufacturer's point of view. The legislation in various countries is starting to help improve the argument, especially in the U.K., where the Disability Discrimination Act is starting to have a profound effect on suppliers of educational resources, etc. and there's also a lot of good will being built up with some of the key players within the industry, but it's like trying to push a big boulder over a cliff - it's easy once the point of balance has gone over the edge, but it'll take a lot of little, firm pushes to get it to that point. Cheers. Tim -----Original Message----- From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of W. Nick Dotson Sent: 24 November 2005 16:37 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Accessible keyboards? I certainly think you're on the right page. Seems to me that having manufacturer's get behind a subset of the MIDI standard, to allow their devices to send data in a manner analagous to the way that some of the Kurzweil's do, Dave Scrimenti (spelling?) and his brother used, might be the direction. The less well-thought out less well articulated the request, the sillier will be the results. This is the kind of thing that it would be good to have someone get behind and present to manufacturer's meetings at N.A.M. or similar industry-wide conferences. I would think, for instance, getting the CakeWalk folks, perhaps because of Jerry knowing them, the ProTools folks, to present a combined proposal to hardware manufacturer's, with say Jerry, the JSonar, and Dancing Dots putting together the "wish list" and suggested means by which this could be accomplished, which would then be endorsed by the software folks previously mentioned. I would say, for instance, allow the end-user of a device tp press a button, maybe with a standardized shape or symbol on it, which would envoke the data transfer process on a specific channel, so that commencement of the control process could be done by a blind device owner independently... Nick On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:27:22 -0700, Sean A. Cummins wrote: WHOA! GANG! Please stop and think about what you are asking for! I am all for asking companies to help, but let's not corner ourselves into only one answer. True accessibility is opening the doors to many options and not just one. I don't know about the rest of you, but I own many different types of Microphones and many different types of guitars and other instruments RIGHT?! So why would I want to have only one keyboard company making an accessible keyboard. OH, I know, we can write all of them, but we'll be lucky if one even gives such a small market a second thought. Rather, we need to approach an individual or individuals that can get us access to all of the MIDI devices that are all ready passing data free from one to the other. I had been pioneering a MIDI music system for the blind way back in the early eighties, and the best thing to have ever happen to the industry was the development of the MIDI interface. This happens to be one of the only industries that sat down and worked out a standard by which all computer based instrument could exchange data and control one another. This data flow is our key to accessibility! We just need to find the person and or persons that would continue to bring all of the concepts together. I would even venture to say that a foundation like the Microsoft Foundation would underwrite the development of the technology if one were to organize and manage just such a project. Data is the key to freedom and not necessarily hardware. Give a man a fish. and he eats for a day! Teach a man to fish. and he eats for a lifetime! In my opinion, this is just what Dancing Dots has done for us all ready! I propose that someone take up the cause of finding Dancing Dots the underwriters for their and our benefit! God bless you all this Thanksgiving! Sean A. Cummins ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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