A little discussion we're having about talking PDA's

[Buddy Brannan]

Hi guys,

OK, allow me to summarize what's going on here in another discussion some
of us are having. ...

First of all, y'all meet Kirk Wood. 

OK. So here goes. Janina, her friend Len, Kirk, Kirk, and I have been
tossing around ideas for a talking PDA running Speakup. Here's	a Reader's
Digest version (much distilled...very condensed) of what we've been talking
about.

Very generally, we'd like to see a more powerful, lower cost
notetaker/PDA/palmtop for blind folks. The current crop, we have
established, is underpowered and overpriced. The logical place to begin
here is Linux, as Janina showed with the Samsung PDA. The disadvantage to
the Samsung unit--and others--is that it uses a touch screen for input.
Janina and her friend Len have suggested that, very like the Palm uses
Graffiti to input data, why can't we use braille, very like a slate and
stylus--although I suggest we punch it forwards like it would be read. The
next question was: Template or no? Seems it'd be easier to punch the
braille with an overlay of some sort with cell cutouts; Kirk Reiser
suggests we might think of using an eight-dot cell, or even a 10-dot cell
for inputting control characters, commands, hot keys, etc. etc. The
discussion has also touched on implementing a software speech synthesizer
in, say, a PC card form factor; also a braille input device as above that
can be connected to an off-the-shelf palm device, for instance. Now we're
discussing processors and so forth to use. ...

OK, so any thoughts on design for above projects are much appreciated, and
those involved in previous discussions, if I left something out important,
just jump right on in. ...
Couple things sorta still hanging:

Developing the synthesizer/finding a form factor for it
Processor...which should we use?
Back translation from braille to ASCII
Umm. ... Whatever else. ...

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV
Email: davros at ycardz.com
Voice mail: 877-791-5298
All opinions are all mine!