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Blind people
have the possibility to know what is inside a computer
thanks to braille language
it is the transcription of informatics into braille
which is made possible thanks to a tactile display.
A tactile display can cost several thousands euros
that is why it can be more easily found in a professional environment
that allows the financing of such a device
Louis Braille, the bicentenary of which was celebrated in 2009,
invented in 19th century a 6-dot language
To make this language explicit
I will show you an egg box
Each of these holes will be filled or not
and it will be dot 1, dot 2, dot 3
dot 4, dot 5 and dot 6
A braille dot is a three-dimensional dot
it's a hole, it's an existence either 0, or 1
the first letter of the alphabet holds dot 1, it's A
If I use a second dot, dot 2, I will get letter B
and we can go on this way
and so letter C will hold dot 1 then dot 4
1, 2, 3, 4 !
that's it, these are the simplest letters of the alphabet : A, B, C
I will show you at once letter E
so, letter E... here we have two eggs
it's dot 1 and dot 5
So, with the first 4 dots we will
form the first 10 letters of the alphabet
and, as from the eleventh letter
we will start again with these first 10 letters plus dot 3
and by adding the last dot, dot 6
letters can be constituted from the 21th letter of the alphabet
then there are also special characters
here, we have 6 dots, it's a "e" acute
a very common letter in French alphabet.
Here is my 6-dot array.
With the 6 dots that correspond to the "e" acute
we have the maximum number of possibilities of the language invented by Louis Braille
i.e 2 to the power of 6, i.e 64 characters
by adding a 7th and a 8th dot
we will have 2 to the power of 8, i.e 256 possibilities
which leads us to what is commonly called in computing, a "byte"
for a byte is a series of "1" and "0"
8 possibilities, which is more than enough to reproduce
most of the characters necessary to ordinary language.
I will show you how to use a tactile display
that allows to read temporary braille
To use this tactile display, I need a screen reader software
that allows to convert text, either into speech synthesis,
or into braille character string.
Each cell has 8 teeth
in high or low position, displays "1" or "0"
Each of the bytes can be found under a finger
so we can read the sentence, the words, the terms
that are used on the screen by sighted people. [the phone is ringing]
Jean de l'Hussat speaking. Ah ! Hello Christophe,
you want Marie's phone number? yes, ok...
by the way, are you free or not tomorrow ?
will you attend the meeting at 2:00 PM? Great.
Marie's phone number is 92 16 61 00
You see, I didn't know it by heart
so I've managed with my tactile display
Ok see you later, see you tomorrow.
Here we have the first line of the text
I can notice that dot 7 has appeared
for each of the characters.
Which means that this first line
is in capitals.
My title "what is a braille display?"
To go to the next line
I'm using the little cursor here.
"A braille display is an electromechanical device
used by blind people to display in real time"
and I can read the end of my line
beyond the first 64 characters.
So I can read a text but I can also
enter information thanks to the Perkins keyboard
that I can feel under my fingers,
just like the braille dots
I've just introduced you to:
"1", "2", "3", "4" "5", "6", "7" and "8".
So, for example I can add a line here to write ...
I will type a capital "A" with dot "7"
A, r, t, i, c, l, e, Article.
t, i, r, e "e" acute, d, e, capital "W",
i, k, i, p, e, d, i ,a Article, from, Wi...ki...pe...dia"
That's it, so I've typed a character string
that can be read as a word processor
directly after my document.
As you probably have understood, such a device
under the fingers of a blind person
who practises braille, can prove very efficient.
Many young braillists
are formidable in occupational environment.
Then, we can try to go on the Internet
But unfortunately, many websites
are not accessible and we cannot
find the information we are looking for
but that's another story...