moderated Re: Typability From yesaccessibility.com
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James Malone
The one good thing about David Pinto is that he makes this program fun and rewarding in its own way. He spends thousands of hours perfecting his scripts, and will provide help and documentation for his work. And most important, he’ll make it work with Jaws, not no silly animation such as Talking Typing Teacher.
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of JM Casey
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2020 9:41 AM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: Typability From yesaccessibility.com
Certainly agree with your principle Glenn … though I am not sure it’s always entirely wrong to profit from a niche market like the disabled, certainly the entire model should be different and it’s ridiculous that the costs for some of these blindness-related products is so inflated.
I don’t know anything about typing tutorials nowadays, but I certainly remember some on disk for the Apple II computer. In the mid/late 80s when I was using the things, they were already old and I think most software was already in the public domain or close to. There were a few fun typing games … one that was kind of like space invaders and made use of the limited Apple speaker sound capability as well as the Echo speech synthesiser, whose pitch would increase as the letters got “closer” to you. Fun times. Haha
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Glenn / Lenny
Honestly, typing is one of the most important skills lacking in the Blind. Mostly among the newly Blind. However, with that in mind, in my opinion, I would state that it is despicable to make profit off a typing program designed for the Blind. I think makers of software for the Blind, or other disabilities if it exists, need to stop making a living off the backs of the disabled, and spearhead an open-source movement for specialized software for the disabled, and get a real job. It will always be a small market and the cost will always be ten to twenty times the cost to the consumer of similar software, to the general public because of its limited market. That is why the rehabilitation-specific software that state agencies purchase cost a couple million dollars per agency and about a third of a million annually to maintain it, for a product that by standards of complexity could otherwise easily be done as open-source software. I have a degree in business management, so it's not like I don't understand how business works. And I find it even worse when the disabled themselves engage in profiting off their brothers and sisters, especially when they have or still do exist on a disability-related income. But to my original point, there needs to be an open-source typing program designed for the Blind, because a good one would incorporate some screenreader keyboard commands, Fun With Typability does this, I don't recall if TTT does, it's been a long time since I taught with that one. So they are decent products in terms of what is needed, they only need to be free to consumers. Perhaps they should operate like some programs do, free for home use, and a cost for business use.
Glenn
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