With the aid of very thick glasses, I had nearly normal vision as a child. I remember going to the library during summer break from school, coming home with a bag full of books, and reading every one before going back for more. My parents subscribed to Readers Digest, I'd read every issue cover to cover, and then anticipate the next issue. Because of a hereditary disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP,) my retinas have been slowly degenerating from childhood, and still today it continues it's progress. The summer of 1980 I read my last paperback novel. It was Stephen King's Salem's Lot. Some time in the mid '80s I stopped reading magazines. The last time I remember reading a newspaper was in 1986. I was on my lunch break from my job as an account clerk at Graebel Van Lines. Squinting, and nose to the paper, I read the Slightly Kloss-Eyed column in the Milwaukee Sentinel at Pat's Diner, while I waited for my food. Last year (1995,) I crossed the line from being mostly sighted, to mostly blind, as it was last year that I began to use my cane for traveling all the time, rather than just at night. Now, at the age of 34, I think of myself as blind, but I knew that this time would come, and prepared myself for it -- Or so I thought..
I can still read to a limited extent using a Closed Circuit Television (CCTV,) which consists of a video camera pointed down at a x/y table similar to that of a microfiche reader, with the camera connected directly to a TV monitor. Using the CCTV, I can magnify the image of a book or other document, enhancing the brightness and contrast giving me an image on the screen, which I can see. There is enough room for me to get a pen under the camera, allowing me to write while viewing the monitor, which enables me to fill out forms. I use it only for work, or an occasional letter, since it takes too much effort, and is too slow to read for enjoyment. Using screen enlargement software, and a CCTV, I can still do my job as a computer operator at SNE Enterprises, but my eye-sight is getting worse, to the point that I won't be able to do my current job in the way I now do, and will require speech output on each terminal I use. The tools are available to me, and that greatly improves my chances of surviving in today's work-force.
There is an incredible amount of competition in assistive/adaptive technology. Everything from the CCTVs to speech output for computers, calculators, clocks/watches, and even scales, can be found at the "Closing the Gap" conference. All this competition has greatly improved the ability of the blind to lead independent productive lives. It doesn't come cheap though. Because of the limited market, and heavy competition, most adaptive equipment, and software is quite expensive. Without help from the government, charitable organizations, or other benefactors, the needed equipment, software, and training, is out of the reach of most blind people. We are also a few years behind everyone else technology wise. From what I've seen, voice output for Windows(tm) has just within the last couple of years gotten to the point of being practical, although still far from perfect, and how long has 3.1 been out?
I have been using speech output since I got my first SLIP account 3 years ago. All I had was Gopher, Telnet, FTP, and E-Mail clients, but reading with large print soon proved to be far too slow, and so I started using voice output. The technology was readily available to me because I was working part-time at our local Technical College, which houses one of the two best facilities in the state of Wisconsin for training the blind, and for the last two of those years I was working for the program for students with disabilities teaching voice input. During this time, I discovered this thing called the internet. Very soon after I discovered Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs,) and armed with my new-found reader, I wasted most of my first 3 years on the internet mudding. Well, mudding wasn't a total waste, first of all it's a lot of fun, and works perfectly with voice output, except for the fact that the voice slows you down. I have, as a result of mudding, not only increased my typing speed, but also the speed at which I can understand the synthesizer.
Now, after changing ISPs twice, and learning to use LYNX, I have turned into an information sponge. I just can't get enough. It is as though part of me stopped growing, when I stopped reading books, magazines, and newspapers. It has been said that you don't know what you have until you lose it, but in this case I didn't know what I had lost until I had found it again, and now I'm trying to make up for lost time. It all started when my brother told me to check out TIME magazine. They have a text-only version which I bookmarked right away. I read it in it's entirety in about 3 hours, and started in on the back issues. With Switchboard.com, I no longer need directory assistance. At Bibliomania.com, I can read from a large selection of public domain books in html. I read 2 to 3 books per month. All the links to publications that are on my home page, are sites that I visit on a regular basis. Most, I read in their entirety, and when I've caught up on my reading then I get to surf, or play StarMUD.
The advances in technology have been coming so quickly that we all have a difficult time keeping up, and guessing what technologies will last, and which will be forgotten, leaving us with a closet full of obsolete stuff. This is compounded for the blind, or anyone who has a disability which requires special equipment or software to use computers. It is a very difficult task to find and learn how to use the tools that are available, and when the core technology changes (i.e. graphic interfaces,) we are back to square one. Every time a webmaster decides to try out Netscape's frames, I get rejected with some message telling me to get a frames compatible browser. The World Wide Web Consortium guidelines for html should be required reading for all webmasters. Especially the sections concerning accessibility. If you want to see a good example of a text-only alternative, take a look at TIME's.
At this point, I'm really positive about the future. I just have no idea how I will fit into it yet. I keep thinking that working via the internet is going to be a reality, but the reality is that the line at the virtual unemployment office stretches out long and winding before me. Although I sometimes get a little bit discouraged, I'd rather think of it like complaining about road construction. We all hate dealing with detours, but we are all better off for it in the end. At least now, I can pick out a good book to read while I wait for the road crew to finish their work, and get out of my way.