
Optacon - bangonkeyboard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optacon
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mlang23
Since this is a site that actually revolves around everything start-up, I feel
the need to mention that there might indeed be a market for this. The Optacon
filled a nieche that currently nothing else does. A portable, relatively
affordable generic tactile graphic display. While we have OCR these days,
things like layout and handwriting are still a major issue. There are problems
that are pretty much unsolved in practice, like OCR'ing math formulas and have
them present in a readable tactile way, which the Optacon solved for those
people motivated enough to deal with it. A modern Optacon would still have the
nice small camera, but likely also a "terminal mode" which could be used to
explore the content of your computer screen, using the camera as a sort of
mouse. If you manage to design something that is reliable, and matches or
surpasses the Optacon in practicability, you can expect to charge around $5k
for it and it should be a success (as far as successes in the assistive
technology market go). I should probably mention that this has already been
tried around 2000. The product was called VirTouch and was made by an israeli
company which name I forgot. Unfortunately, they never really went into mass
production, the company somehow went out of bussiness before the product went
out of demo mode unfortunately. However, I still think this could be pulled
off if done right.

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unwind
If I understood this correctly, a pixel that is "on" in the tactile array is
not just raised up above the "off" level, it is actually vibrating up and down
at somewhere between 250 and 300 Hz.

That certainly makes the mechanics complicated, an array of such pins is not
exactly off the shelf today either, I think?

It feels like the rest of the system, including of course the optical part
which was a major achievement back then with custom silicon to get 144
photodiodes on a single chip, are more or less trivial today. But the
complexity of a mechanical "display" is still not something that is solved by
mainstream components as far as I know.

I wonder how reliable they are, I hope it's "very" since people are still
using mechanical devices from 15+ years ago for something as critical. :/

Edit: I found this link [1] which shows a cross-section of a sensing pin
connected to a piezoelectric bimorph. I can't imagine packing 144 of that
structure that closely together, though. But perhaps the device offsets the
bimorphs from the array, connecting the pins and bimorphs mechanically.

[1]
[https://books.google.se/books?id=6dWjBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA309](https://books.google.se/books?id=6dWjBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA309)

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dangerface
> That certainly makes the mechanics complicated, an array of such pins is not
> exactly off the shelf today either, I think?

A solenoid is just a pin with an electro magnet wire wrapped around, put a
spring on the pin to pull it back into the electro magnet and when you turn
the magnet on it should vibrate.

A 100x100 grid of solenoids should cost under $100 they are fairly cheap, you
might even be able to use a grid of wires and pins so they are addressable.

~~~
ca01an
Where can you buy suitable solenoids?

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kashishgrover
It's sad how some great tech is killed just like that. Here I was, wearing my
Pebble 2, being sad about how Pebble died, and then I read this. It is way
more important for this kind of tech to live and improve.

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jannotti
Doesn't taking a picture of the whole page at once and then having it read to
you after OCR dominate this in every way, from ease of input (from the page)
to flexibility of output (to the human)?

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pavel_lishin
I'm not blind, but that method probably doesn't let you skip around the page -
including backwards - as easily.

It also sounds like the Optacon had some fancy capability to represent non-
textual data like graphs and metadata like fonts:

> _The Optacon offers capabilities that no other device offers including the
> ability to see a printed page or computer screen as it truly appears
> including drawings, typefaces, and specialized text layouts._

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madsweeney
I've been using Optacons since approx 1982 where my school had one available.
I read language reference and utility manuals at work. I even tackled Knuth
vol 1 using an Optacon. I was even able to use it to read food packaging of
different shapes and sizes (something which wasn't possible with OCR). I could
even use the Optacon to read some diagrams. I was able to use them until about
2010 when my last one died. I would snap up Optacons from my cohorts as they
abandoned them in favour of OCR solutions or phone apps.

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ca01an
What advantages does the optacon have over OCR solutions or phone apps? Why
did your cohorts abandon them?

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funylon
Wow. Blast from the past. We used it in our Psychology Dept. to find out if
users could perceive 3D images through simulated 3D rotation of the 2D lines
on the device. This was in 1984 and I was the student intern software
developer. They put the project on hold at some point.

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lucasmullens
> The Optacon offers capabilities that no other device offers

It was discontinued in 1996, how is it still doing something that no other
device offers?

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detaro
Devices don't magically stop working when the company stops making them.

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bangonkeyboard
Devices back then didn't, at least.

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mlang23
The moving parts of a pre-2000 product were definitely more robust then these
days. That applies to piezzo based refreshable braille displays as well.
However, when using hardware that actually needs to move parts around, nothing
keeps working forever. After 20+ years of use (you have to remember that these
devices are the primary means of reading for a blind person, so they get quite
a workout) almost everything will start to fail.

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cbanek
Was this the device that Whistler used in the movie Sneakers? I guess that was
more of a keyboard or monitor though...

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aidenn0
He used a braille terminal.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display)

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Ididntdothis
Kind of sad. It would be much easier and cheaper to build this with today’s
equipment and computing power.

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mlang23
I am not sure if that is really true. It might be cheaper to build, but it
will probably not last as long as the 1980-product. We see this in refreshable
braille displays too. The newish models tend to have about half the lifetime
compared to pre-2000 models. Making things smaller and cheaper doesnt help if
you are dealing with a shitload of moving parts. It is really sad to watch.
While technology has clearly improved around us in the last 20 years, quality
of refreshable braille display has gone down notably. I miss the times when I
bought a $12k refreshable braille display with 80 cells and could be sure that
it would last for at least 10 years. These days, you can be happy if you can
still use it after 6 years.

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popmilo2
Could you share info about some of the models you used so far ? As someone who
lives with a blind person, I can see how quality of product is important for
life quality. Equipment always seems expensive at first, but then you realize
that piece of tech is used almost 24h a day and gives so much back...

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mlang23
I refuse to talk to non-blind people _about_ blind people. That is such a
patronizing move. They can write me an email if they are interested to talk
about different products. mlang@blind.guru

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nerdponx
This story exemplifies why we need open source software and open hardware.

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bronson
A video from 1967 showing it:
[https://youtu.be/z47Gv2cdFtA?t=1600](https://youtu.be/z47Gv2cdFtA?t=1600)

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theloniousmc
“Bob Stearns – A blind computer programmer working at SRI. Bob used the
Optacon in his work writing and de-bugging computer programs.“

I want to know more about this guy

