Noel,
This is fascinating information and history, and, hopefully, will be
archived and available for future manufacturers.
Judy
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Noel Runyan
Sent: Tuesday, February 8, 2022 2:21 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Training
Ben and others,
My apologies in advance for the length of this response.
Quite a while ago, I shared on this list what Jim Bliss told me about the
Optacon and the noisy square wave drive.
He said that the initial testing subjects for the Optacon were so excited
about the first Optacons that none of them were complaining about the
annoying noise. It wasn't until Telesensory Systems had committed to the
large expense of having the custom display driver chips produced that they
started getting serious complaints about the square wave noise being a real
drawback. By that time, it was too late and impractical to change the
design.
When Canon developed what was later sold as the Optacon II, they did it in
secret without Bliss's knowledge. Because of that, they didn't know that
Bliss would have recommended that the Optacon II should have been designed
to use the smoother sounding sine wave drive for the tactile array.
Later, when Blazie Engineering got a grant to work on developing an Optacon
III, they modified an Optacon classic to have its tactile display driven by
a smooth sine wave, and they had a blind programmer, Phil Hall, who was an
experienced user of the standard Optacon, test the sine wave Optacon. He
found that it seemed to work as well as the normal square wave Optacon.
As Charles Pond has mentioned before on this list, The audible noise of the
standard Optacon does supply a little additional information that seems to
sometimes improve reading for some readers. As far as we know, nobody has
ever had a chance to do proper testing of possible audible contribution
differences amongst identical displays, when driven by square, sine,
triangle, or sawtooth wave dsignals.
There is another significant tactile response effect to be considered, when
comparing the standard Optacon's piezo-driven tactile displays to magnetic
solenoid-driven displays.
Because of the Optacon's cantilever pin actuator design, the tops of the
Optacon pins are allowed to wobble or vibrate slightly from side to side.
This sideways or lateral movement is considered to improve the tactile
response on the Optacon displays. Most of the other designs proposed for an
Optacon III tactile display are magnetically driven actuators that only move
the pin tops vertically in a guide tube, thus not allowing any significant
lateral motion of the pin tops.
Anyone who investigates the merits of various shapes of the driving signal
wave forms for vibrating tactile displays should keep in mind all of the
relevant factors, such as lateral pin top movement, as well as possible
enhancement due to the different audible sound.
Cordially,
Noel
-
Noel H. Runyan
Email: Noel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
v At 10:24 AM 2/8/2022, Benjamin Blatter wrote:
Dan, it was very interesting to read from you how things worked at yourIt is a sad situation.
time. It's sad that your people felt disturbed by the sounds of the
Optacon. I read or heard somewhere that the developers of the Optacon
would have changed the sound to a less disturbing sound curve like par
examples sinus wave. But the Optacons where progressed already way to
far for this.
While I had joy with my Optacon the constant picking needles made me
tired after maybe 30 minutes and so I didn't really want to read whole
books this way. I for sure couldn't have kept up during my musical
education with an Optacon. In this time book scanners and OpenBook came
up and I got many materials presented on floppy discs :-)
Ben
Am 08.02.2022 um 18:20 schrieb dan.tevelde@xxxxxxxxxxx:school for
When I got my optacon in high school there were limited options
where I could get training and an optacon to keep. I got my training
at a
the blind and my optacon was loaned to me by the U.S. Department ofable to keep
Education with the understanding that I would need to return it when
I graduated from college. Some people I know went to Associated
Services for the Blind in Philadelphia for training which I think
included an optacon. I wonder how much the training cost. The fact
that I would not be
an optacon was a disincentive for me to ever become a fluentuser. I did not
get much pleasure from the device and my family hated the noise. Ioptacons in
was always having problems keeping paperback books and magazines
open. Maybe my skills would have improved if I had spent more time
with the optacon. In college I wasn't able to keep up without hiring
readers. Recently A friend gave me an optacon and I need to get
around to fixing it. It isn't my highest priority. If we ever get a
new type of optacon with more features I probably would be more
interested in developing my skills using it. If I don't get around
to fixing the optacon then I will donate it to someone on this list.
I wouldn't do what some friends did by throwing their
the trash. I'm sure I could find someone to use it if I decide
getting it fixed wouldn't justify my using it.
I know my comments sound negative but this is an example of where I
would want more modern technology to interest me more in an optacon.
I think the device should be essentially the same but with newer
components and a digital interface so software could be updated. We
have the technology except for a practical tactile array which is a
real shame. The worst of it is that we don't have enough interest in
an optacon where we could obtain funding for research and development.
to:(without the quotes) in the message subject.
Dan
to view the list archives, go to:
www.freelists.org/archives/optacon-l
To unsubscribe at any time, just send a message to:
optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe"
a message to:
Tell your friends about the list. They can subscribe by sending
(without the quotes) in the message subject.
optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "subscribe"
to view the list archives, go to:
www.freelists.org/archives/optacon-l
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
optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "subscribe" (without the
quotes) in the message subject.
