![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellAnd we were there! And do we have the horror stories to prove it--anyone else remember Whispering Wendy? I'm pretty certain she was developed by the male developers so that they could have a sexy throaty female voice, but what they got was a stalker with a meat knife whispering to you in the dark about how she just boiled your bunny rabbit.
Kes: Stanford has a great timeline of the development of accessible technology, which you can find here
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/2005-06/accessibility/firstwave.html#:~:text=1986%20%E2%80%93%20Jim%20Thatcher%20created%20the,graphical%20interface%20PCs%20(4).
Kes: This event is more of a crash course in screen readers, and there are scholarships available. You can also read the recent entry
A Brief History of Screen Readers
https://knowbility.org/blog/2021/a-brief-history-of-screen-readers/
Webinar from Knowbility
Screen Readers in the Wild. A Celebration of the 35th Anniversary of the First Screen Reader, Released in 1986
January 25th 2021 8AM PT, 9AM MT, 10AM CT, 11AM ET, 4PM GMT
IBM Researcher and Accessibility Pioneer, Jim Thatcher, created the first screen reader in 1986. The IBM Screen Reader worked with the text-based Desktop Operating System (DOS). It was initially only available within IBM. Jim and his team continued development and released IBM Screen Reader/2 to work with graphical operating systems such as Windows 95 and IBM OS/2.
Price: $35
Register here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/screen-readers-in-the-wild-tickets-135342363653
Kes: Stanford has a great timeline of the development of accessible technology, which you can find here
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/2005-06/accessibility/firstwave.html#:~:text=1986%20%E2%80%93%20Jim%20Thatcher%20created%20the,graphical%20interface%20PCs%20(4).
Kes: This event is more of a crash course in screen readers, and there are scholarships available. You can also read the recent entry
A Brief History of Screen Readers
https://knowbility.org/blog/2021/a-brief-history-of-screen-readers/
Webinar from Knowbility
Screen Readers in the Wild. A Celebration of the 35th Anniversary of the First Screen Reader, Released in 1986
January 25th 2021 8AM PT, 9AM MT, 10AM CT, 11AM ET, 4PM GMT
IBM Researcher and Accessibility Pioneer, Jim Thatcher, created the first screen reader in 1986. The IBM Screen Reader worked with the text-based Desktop Operating System (DOS). It was initially only available within IBM. Jim and his team continued development and released IBM Screen Reader/2 to work with graphical operating systems such as Windows 95 and IBM OS/2.
Price: $35
Register here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/screen-readers-in-the-wild-tickets-135342363653
Okay, I'm going to be *that guy*
Date: 2021-01-26 05:25 pm (UTC)The first screen readers were on Atari. But I'm going to blather about the one I worked with on Apple II computers. Back when I was part-owner of Raised Dot Computing, our software was optimized for voice output, and it took advantage of TEXTALKER, the 1982 software that supported the Echo speech devices from Street Electronics.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/textalker/oclc/20339416
TEXTALKER came in DOS 3.3 and ProDOS versions, and was compatible with many Apple II programs that didn't address the screen directly. TEXTALKER featured "line review," where you could navigate the 80 or 40-column screen. This RDC Newsletter article gushes about the latest features in the 1986 release. (Sadly, we hadn't yet thought to structure the newsletter-on-disk with searchable characters, and HTML hadn't been invented yet. Search for "TEXTALKER" to read the blurb, on the off chance you care.)
Re: Okay, I'm going to be *that guy*
Date: 2021-01-26 06:53 pm (UTC)Re: Okay, I'm going to be *that guy*
Date: 2021-01-28 09:19 pm (UTC)Tee hee hee