An inexpensive and portable talking-tactile terminal for the visually handicapped

The visually handicapped computer user or programmer is faced with a very difficult task in interfacing with computing hardware. The types of equipment currently available for this purpose fall into one of several general categories: expensive, nonportable, and domain-specific. In the current paper, we describe a new terminal device designed specifically for the visually handicapped that answers all of the problems mentioned above. The work is already under way, with a prototype model is currently in use by a visually handicapped programmer on the development team. In the remainder of this paper we will present a report on the current status of our project as well as plans and milestones for future work.