Hi listers, Here is my delirium about a machine I would like someone to create... I would like to know what potential users and/or developpers think of this idea to see if I can forget it right away or if others would be interested to see it existing. I would like - and I believe modern technology and ancient wisdom would allow for it -, a cross-over betwween a "Road-runner" and a virtual Slade and stylus. Physical description. Imagine a rectangular box of about 3 by 2 by 1 inches that would be held vertically. On the inferior half, there would be a flower-shaped set of keys with the 4 navigating arrows and an "Enter" key in the middle. Just above this miniature keyboard, a rectangle symbolizing one 8-dots Braille cell would be found. On the very top, left and right, a backspace and a space key would be placed. How to use this device? The novelty is, this Braille cell would be used to input, not to output Braille. You would write the desired 8-dot Braille letter with a stylus, then you validate it with the enter key. Since the device would be so small, you would not need to move your fingers in order to validate the character once you've completed it. 8-dot Braille would be required so that the 256 signs of the ascii table can be emulated. The little "flower" I mentioned at the beginning would be used to navigate in the menus. If one made a mistake, either while typing a Braille character or in entering accidentally a menu, the backspace key could be used to cancel the last dot typed or last enter pressed. Through chords between the space bar and Braille characters, one could simulate all the remaining keys of a standard PC keyboard. Software specifications. The device would have about 4mg memory, would be menu driven, would have a headphone jack, a port to connect it to the PC, and a volume control. It would speak using the "Eloquence" synthesis which can speak in many different languages. If we could improve it even further, we would have several sets of Braile tables which would allow the user to input in Grade 2 in various languages. One would just have to select the grade 2 option in the menus. What would this machine allow? This device would allow you to read books or whatever "Text-only" file (in various languages), would have a phone book, an organizer, an alarm clock, a small text-editor. One would input everything through the virtual slade. What would be this machine fortés? Its great advantages would be its light weight (+/- 200g), its small size, its large memory, allowing for both reading and writing in various languages, its long battery life, and its rather inexpensive price (+/- 400Ç). It would be a device to take short notes, to have an agenda, and to listen to books everywhere, in any position. Conceptually, this machine would not be a State-of-the-art notetaker: one could probably not use it to take extensive notes at a meeting. But it would be perfect to write down people's contact information, appointments, directions, etc; or to annotate study matterials or to correct some essays. I am not a technician, just a user, so I let you judge of the feasability of this project. A lot of it is not new: the "Road-Runner" is a very efficient inexpensive reading machine. But, if I am not mistaken, it only reads in English and one cannot make any change in the text. Also, it may be subjective but I don't find the voices so attractive. The Memona plus, a Finish invention, allows people to input information in Braille, but it only has 64K memory and costs about 750Ç. The big novelty in my idea is the use of a stylus and a virtual slade to input one's writing. Indeed, I really wonder why no developper has yet exploited this possibility. I think that would be a great way to save the space of a rather large keyboard (Able to accommodate the size of large fingers), and to add inputing capabilities to the existing small reading machines. What do all the Braille writing fans think of this idea? Thank you in advance for any remark/comment you can send me off-list. Séverine Renard VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List. To join or leave the list, send a message to [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations. VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html