On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Jim Vaglia - TRFN Volunteer wrote:

> Boy, people pay $700 for JAWS for Windows and $900 for something like
> Windowbridge and one doesn't expect more from screenreader manufactures
> when IBM Home Page Reader can be purchased for $150 and does quite nicely
> with reading web pages? Of course webpage designers need to be educated in
> webpage layout and how blind people access the web however screenreading
> manufactures shouldn't be let off the hook for the amount of money we pay.

I believe you are comparing two different things here.  Why would you
expect the same functionality from something that is written to handle as
wide a spectrum of things as possible that you would from something
written to handle one spacific task.  I can write an archive program that
would get something like 400-800 percent compression on pure text files
only, but since it works on english ascii files only, and sticks to only
the lower 127 characters of the ascii set, would you expect pkzip or arj
to get the same sort of compression on those same text files? I think not.
And why? Because pkzip and arj are general purpose programs, and they do
their job extremely well for what they do.  Now tell me again how speech
program writters are short changing us when it comes to web page layouts.
I rest my case.


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