[jaws-uk] Re: what was around before Jaws?
- From: Tristram Llewellyn <tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:48:31 +0000
Historically Dolphin used to dominate the UK and European markets. HAL was
very popular when it was first released in 1988 (I think?) and in those days
you could only review the screen, typing echo was yet to happen for example.
It was very easy to use and one of my first introductions to AT stuff was
maintaining environment files for specific applications. HAL did very well
throughout the early 1990s and Dolphin were very successful in these markets
because it was lots cheaper than anything else. By contrast you could buy JAWS
for DOS and a Dectalk Express which would run to something over a £1000 in the
day. Dolphin would do a package of speech box and software for just under
£600. They used to sell the speech boxes for around £450 alone. There were no
talking installs in those days either.
This all went very well for Dolphin until Windows came along and Dolphin were
caught quite unaware, in fact even the DOS product had begun treading water and
HAL 5.0 was late in coming and was a huge leap in complexity, I had an early
beta somewhere in late 1994 I think. Dolphin were eventually quite late to the
Windows game as well. Over the water a number of established AT developers had
products in the market already such as Slimware Window-Bridge, Protalk and
Outspoken for Windows, and later Artic Winvision are ones I can recall.
Most of them, in particular Window Bridge that I remember were extremely
frustrating to use and teach with and was a combined DOS/Windows product which
made it unwieldy. In early 1994 when I encountered Windows-Bridge JAWS was as
yet unknown. JAWS as we now know it was therefore by no means the first to
market. In fact towards the end of 1994 Henter-Joyce as they were then were
finishing up development of a three year project to develop a Windows screen
reader counterpart for their DOS product. JAWS for DOS which incidentally was
sold by Sight and Sound then (but not in great numbers) who also sold at that
time Window-Bridge in 1994. Early in 1995 word began to spread about JAWS
because at that time it was the first of the screen readers that really made
Windows 3.1 as it was then work well and it wasn’t too long after that when S&S
took on JAWS for Windows. This was something in the day when Microsoft had
barely even thought about Windows accessibility at all and yet there was a
product that would work with Microsoft Office. It wasn’t until a year or so
later that MSAA had been developed and that technology helped take us into
Windows 95 and also NT4 operating system. Then the development obstacles were
fairly major not least of which was the display chaining for Windows NT4
operating system.
Another factor which quickly helped cement JAWS in the market was its scripting
language gave it the adaptability upon which users and business such as S&S
could build services around. Many products today have some sort of scripting
capability but few other AT developers or resellers have been able to
capitalise fully upon these facilities in the way that has occurred with JAWS.
Regards.
Tristram Llewellyn
Sight and Sound Technology
Technical Support
www.sightandsound.co.uk
Mail:
Tristram: tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical: Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
General – info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Phone:
Support line: 0845 634 7979
Sight and Sound Technology Limited is a company registered in England and
Wales, with company number 1408275.
Sight and Sound Technology
Welton House North Wing
Summerhouse Road
Moulton Park
Northampton
NN3 6WD
VAT Number – GB 860 2121 66.
From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Daniel McGee
Sent: 10 August 2010 21:27
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] what was around before Jaws?
hi everyone, a bit of a history question hear lol. But I was just wondering
before jaws came along what was the way blind users could access computers? And
another question. I asked someone once was there an older version of windows 95
and he said "yes" it was called windows 3.1 so I was just wondering what was it
like to use that version of windows. Sorry its an old question but I'm
interested. Seriously!
Many Thanks
Daniel
p.s.
What was the 1st version of Jaws called and what was the OS called that you
could use it on?
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