IBM makes mouse for blind users

Press, 27 January 1987, Page 27

IBM makes mouse for blind users

IBM has developed a mouse for blind users. A mouse is a hand-held device that is connected to a personal computer and allows a cursor to be positioned on screen.

The experimental IBM mouse works by raising tiny “pistons” at a user’s fingertip as the mouse is moved across a desk-top tablet, spelling out in braille the characters, words and symbols on the screen. Blind people use braille to read by touch, moving a finger or fingers across a row of raised dots, just as a sighted person scans a printed line.

A person moving the cursor around the screen with the mouse can feel the characters like a printed braille page beneath his or her finger and easily conceive a mental image of the screen.

No special software or training is required to use the device, provided the user can read braille. In fact it could be used to teach braille, according to the IBM scientists.

The mouse, a special personal computer adapter card and a tablet plug into the personal computer system’s chassis. The special personal computer adapter card, part of the invention, converts any character pointed to by the cursor into braille. The tablet provides an operating surface for the mouse and a frame of reference for the user.

To make reading easier the mouse can track each line on the display. Rows and columns are engraved on the tablet in braille as a quick location guide, and a fingertip switch lets the user “ask” where the cursor is on the screen. The person is then given the row and column number in braille. A user can alternate between Grade 1 Braille (which includes all 26 English letters, 11 common punctuation marks and numbers) and Computer Braille (which consists of the upper and lower case alphabet, the numbers zero to nine and more than 50 programming symbols, plus spaces). Spaces can be as significant in computer programming as th,ey are in written language. Advantages of the experimental IBM device include its accuracy and ability to “read” spaces and computer symbols and its potentially lowcost manufacture. Because the mouse does not require special software it could be used with a voice synthesiser, a device which can “say” words that are on the screen as they are touched by the screen cursor. For a blind person whose hearing is also impaired, the IBM device may be the only way to use a personal computer.

Scientists at the Watson Research Centre are building a small number of the devices for evaluation by blind computer users.