[ddots-l] Re: Accessible keyboards?
- From: "W. Nick Dotson" <nickdotson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 11:26:23 -0600
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
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