This new Braille Voyager from Tieman sounds like a product which just
might almost be up to the point where Papenmeier's Braillex Portable and
Braillex Tiny models were about two years ago.  If the price is really
significantly lower, then it might be a real competitorr, and the software
interface sounds worthy of further investigation.  They still don't say
anything about whether the cells can actually be cleaned and maintained by
a careful end-user as can the braille cells on all current Papenmeier
Braillex models.

The Papenmeier models also have a bar on the front of the unit which, with
light pressure, can move the cursor to any point on the screen to
highlight any icon or button in Windows or access any line of text.  This
is more intuitively like pointing and clicking in Windows than even the
most mnemonic of keystroke commands like <control-O> etc. and even faster
than the Tieman approach.  They are still behind the curve and still a
pace or three behind the state of the art in portable braille displays
based on what I have seen of the Papenmeier products and comparing with
the information in this announcement.


Brent Reynolds
Random Access Internet Shell account
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