Albert, there are many Braille printers on the market, and they vary in
mainly in price and speed. The general rule is that the faster the printer
embosses Braille, thethe more you're going to pay for it. Here are some
Web sites to try for more info on their Braille printers, also known as
embossers.
Blazie Engineering
www.blazie.com
makes the Braille Blazer. It's the most inexpensive, at $1695, printing at
15 characters per second. I personally wouldn't recommend this embosser,
but it may fit your needs.
Enabling Technologies
www.brailler.com
makes many types of printers starting at around $2400,and working up to
super expensive but very, very fast machines.
Somewhere, there's a printer floating around known as the Porta-thiel, for
around the same price as the Braille Blazer. Imho; don't buy this. The
Braille it produces is good but its command structure is totally
unintuitive. The questions you need to ask are, how fast do you need the
thing to print, and how much are you willing to spend on a printer? I know
that you can now buy color printers for sighted folks for less than $150,
but it just isn't so with Braille printers. Also, Blazie Engineering,
since they now have bought Telesensory's Braille products, sells the
Versapoint, formerly made by TSI. From what I know of that printer, it may
not be a bad choice.
Bear in mind that some printers are what's known as interpoint
printers, meaning that they produce Braille on both sides of the page.
They'll save you money in paper, obviously, but you'll pay more for the
convenience, as interpoint machines are more expensive than single-sided
embossers.
There's also a line of printers known as the Index printers, and I'm
not sure who sells them. Perhaps Humanware does,
www.humanware.com
Good luck.
At 08:56 AM 11/18/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi,
>are there any Braille printers on the market?
>
>What brands are recommended as most useful and durable; easy to use as well.
>
>thanks,
>
>Albert
>
>
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Godspeed
David Goldfield
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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