What a great idea! I've been extremely fortunate personally to get a couple of donated Optacons which could be repaired, but the idea of having some Optacons donated for parts in exchange for a fully repaired less damaged one to allow someone to pay a lesser repair bill sounds outstanding. I wish there were also a way to know if places like school districts and governmental agencies such as Social Security Administration have Optacons stockpiled in some storage room somewhere which could be recirculated. Linda Gehres ----- Original Message ----- From: "Catherine Thomas" <braille@xxxxxxxxx> To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 1:54 AM Subject: Donated Optacons open up new choices > As the Optacon corpses pile up and can be made available to various > repairers, new choices suddenly exist for Optacon users. These choices > might result in even more donated Optacons. > TRADE-INS > Up to this point, a user's only choice was to have a given broken Optacon > repaired. As all of us know, certain repairs such as to the tactile array > could cost quite a bit and sometimes made the repair financially > impossible. But think of this positive from our two-week project. If > enough corpses are available you could send in your badly damaged Optacon > to be used for parts and instead pay the repair bil on a different Optacon > that is less damaged. This means that all those backup Optacons that only > half work can in fact be sent in for repairs without forcing a user to go > bankrupt. I had not thought of it before but it is possible that this is > one of the most positive of the outcomes of our project so far. Along the > same line, if a user wants an Optacon repaired that needs an array for > example, instead of performing the repair which is costly and > time-consuming, it might be possible to replace the array instead. Les > cost, less time and labor, everybody wins. > Special thanks to anyone who in any way arranged for an Optacon to be > donated. > Also, now that it is possible to create brand-new retina cables it is > going to be possible to bring many more Optacons back to full strength > operation. > Ao far, of all the positive outcomes of the Optacon preservation project, > I think this is the best. What do you all think. > Catherine > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > -Catherine Thomas > braille@xxxxxxxxx / > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe at any time, just send a message to: > > optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" (without the > quotes) in the message subject. > > Tell your friends about the list. They can subscribe by sending a message > to: > > optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "subscribe" (without the > quotes) in the message subject. > > To unsubscribe at any time, just send a message to: optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" (without the quotes) in the message subject. Tell your friends about the list. They can subscribe by sending a message to: optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "subscribe" (without the quotes) in the message subject.