English Into Braille At 1000 Words A Minute

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30827, 12 August 1965, Page 19

English Into Braille At 1000 Words A Minute

An electronic computer is now translating English into Braille at a rate of more than 1000 words a minute. According to officials at the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky, data-processing system installed there last year is an important step toward making more written material, in greater variety, available to the 400,000 blind persons in the United States and countless more throughout the world. Although the American Printing House computer translation programme is unique in its production status, similar programmes are under investigation in several European countries. The computer translation programme employs the complex rules of Braille usage to convert English into the 246 characters of grade II Braille. These characters—combinations of six raised dots—represent the alphabet, numbers, and punctuation, as well as 183 special contractions and abbreviations.

Texts to be translated by the computer are first reproduced on punched cards. The computer converts the text into Braille, and first produces a printed page with Braille characters matched to the English equivalent. After this page is proofread for accuracy, the computer produces a set of

punched cards which are then used to operate a stereograph. This machine produces the embossed plates from which Braille pages are prepared. One of the longest operations in the production of Braille literature has, in the past, been the proof-reading and correction of translation errors in the Braille' plate. The new computer process virtually eliminates this procedure; and programme improvements, now under development, will ultimately reduce proof-reading the printed page with Braille character to 5 per cent of all computer translation.

Since its installation in April last year, the computer has been used in the translation of more than 100 fulllength books. These books are distributed through the Library of Congress, educational institutions, libraries, and other channels. Titles include such standard prose works as “Kidnapped,” “The Scarlet Letter,” “The Sound and the Fury,” and “Arrowsmith.” Current fiction such as “Dr. Tom Dooley,” “Mila--18,” “Advise and Consent,” “The Fanny Farmer CookBook,” and career guides for high school use have also been translated into Braille by computer. At present about 30 per cent of American Printing House translation is done by computer.