Hello list readers Just a brief? introduction in case I can be a resource for any of you. I am Tom Fowle, a rehab engineer and "Embedded systems developer" at the Smith-Kettlewell Rehab engineering research center. We are one of about 25 RERCs afunded by the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, an arm of the federal department of education. Our goal is to assist in using "Off the shelf" technology to improve access for blind, low vision, and deaf blind folks. Although most of our focus is on work related areas, we also do projects related to recreation and daily living. Although we use computers as tools, computer access is not one of our major areas of work. Our main area of experteese is simple adaptations mostly for electronic and other measuring equipment. We have designed many talking audible and tactile output devices ofer the last 20 years. documentation for most of them can be found in "The Smith-Ketlewell Technical File" a technical journal produced in braille, tape and IBM disk 4 times each 2 years. We have trained many blind people in soldering and other basic labratory techniques including building simple electronic test equipment. Our "Compendium of projects can be found on our web site at: http://www.skeri.org/rerc/ Copies of the compendium and back isues of the technical file can be had by writing to Bill Gerrey at the address below. Personally I develope projects containing microcontrollers, mostly 8 bit, and almost always programmed in assembly language. I am a very! reluctant windows beginner. Other interests include ham radio, wa6ivgt (relatively inactive) and sailing with BAADS, the Bay Area Association of Disabled sailors. We are always happy to consult about access problems which aren't otherwise solved by the industry, and on occasion we can design and build specific equipment for a particular problem. Thanks for putting up with this overly long message. Tom Fowle Embedded systems developer The Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center 2318 Fillmore St. San Francisco, CA 94115 415 345-2123 Internet: [log in to unmask] 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