MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. News Office (AC0069) From the Office of Public Relations Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Telephone: (617) 864-6900, Extension 2701 RELEASE ON RECEIPT Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a braille input-output terminal that allows a 23-year-old blind graduate student to have instant "touch reading' ac- cess to computers and computer systems, The student, Michael L. Lichsteln of Cincinnati, 0., has been using the terminal since last June to hold down a job as a systems analyst for a time-shared computer program used in economics research. Mike's termihal Includes a standard teletypewriter and a braille embosser. He uses touch typing on the teletypewriter keyboard. His back-and-forth messages with the computer appear simultaneously in print on the teletypewriter and in braille on the embosser. "When I am on the computer," Mike says, "I am on an even par with everyone else." The braille terminal was developed at the M. I. T. Center for Sensory Aids Evaluation and Development. Center director is Vito A. Proscia, himself a blind engineer. Project en- gineer was George F. Dalrymple, a staff electrical engineer at the Center. Design support was provided by Murray Burnstine, a consultant in mechanical engineering, and Ranulf W. Gras of the M.I. T. Instrumentation Laboratory. Heart of the terminal is a high speed braille embosser orlginally developed in the M, I. T. Department of Mechanical Engineering under Professors Robert W. Maim and Dwight M. B. Baumann and later developed further at the Sensory Aids Center. Professor Mann is chairman of the steering committee for the Center. Development of the high speed braille embosser has been made possible by a grant from the Hartford Foundation. Demonstration of the emboscer usefulness to the blind, includ- ing its application as a computer terminal, has been made possible by grants and contracts from the U. S. Social and Fehabilitation Service. The braille compuer terminal development is significant not only because it is helping Mike, but also because it opens up a whole new computer world for the blind. This is the world of time-shared interactive compcaers. These are large, centrally- located computer eysems which can be used simultanoujly by many people from remote input-output terminals, usually teletypewriters, connected to a central machine via telephone lines. In such systems, users share files and programs and frequently work together via the computer. - more - Use copy created from Institute Archives record copy. © Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. News Office (AC0069) Braille Input-output terminal -- 2 For sighted persons, this is no problem. They see and read what they type into the system and what the systems type back to them. They have instant input and output. Without instant braille, though, this new computer world would be closed to Mike and other blind professionals. The terminal built for Mike is but the first in a series the Center hopes to use in field tests and demonstrations. A second has been installed recently at the Electronics Re- search Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Cambridge, where it will be used by a blind programmer and mathematician there. One unit was demonstrated earlier this month at a conference on the blind in computer programming sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery at Cleveland, 0. Additional units are being built at the Center for test elsewhere. The new braille terminal is an adaptation and extension of the earlier M.I.T. High- speed Braille Embosser from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The embosser is about the size of a teletypewriter machine and is one part of an embosser-computer-typewriter system that speeds production of braille materials from printed matter. In this configuration, an operator copies printed material on an electric typewriter which, In turn, Is connected to a computer. The computer Is programmed to translate typewriter signals into signals that drive the embosser. In field testing, an embosser and an electric typewriter can be placed in a school and connected by telephone to a remote computer elsewhere. Teachers with blind children in their classes can have teaching materials translated into braille quickly by operators who do not need to know braille code. Application of the embosser as a computer input-output terminal arose last January when Professor Edwin Kuh of the Department of Economics wanted to put Mike to work as a systems analyst for a large computer program in econometrics--the statistical side of eco- nomics. Except that Mike is blind, he is well suited for the job. A 1968 graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio in mathematics and economics, he has a good background for handling econom- ic statistical data. Also, one of his special areas of research interest as a graduate student is econometrics. Moreover, Mike is a computer buff. Blind since he was nine due to a tumor and glaucoma, as a teenager Mike spent time around the University of Cincinnati where his father, - more - Use copy created from Institute Archives record copy. © Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. News Office (AC0069) Braille input-output terminal - - 3 Dr. Herman C. Lichetein, is a medical school professor of microbiology. When he was 16, Mike began what amounted to independent study on computers working with Dr. Theodore Sterling who was then head of the UC biomedical computer center. With Dr. Sterling, Mike made some first steps of his own toward computer braille. He rigged a UC line printer so its' period mark would emboss paper with a raised braille dot, then hooked it to a computer programmed to translate its printed output into braille writing. It was a slow process. Each braille character required several strokes with the period ham- mer. Also, it was for output only. Mike could not work on-line with the computer exchanging braille messages back and forth. But it was a good start and the system, used at UC and elsewhere, has enabled many blind people to become computer programmers. At M.I.T., the problem was of a different magnitude. The time-shared program Mike works on is called TROLL. Included in It are economic data plus subprograms that enable users to draw on the data to estimate, simulate and model economic systems and con- cepts. As systems analyst, Mike has to interrogate, edit and manipulate the data files, keep stored operating manuals up to date, and deal via the computer with his customers, the sys- tem users. He is the intermediary between the professional economists who use the system and the dark interiors of the computer. To use the embosser as a time-sharing computer terminal several requirements had to be met. First, a complete braille code with all the computer symbols was defined, such that there is only one cell of braille for each inkprint symbol used by the computer. Grade I braille is not usable as the numbers and certain punctuation require two braille cells. Further, certain symbols do not exist in Grade I braille. Likewise, Grade II braille does not meet the one-cell requirement. Several variants of "one-cell" braille have been used in previous com- puter work, but a suitable, complete braille coding system did not exist for use with the com- puter used by Mike. A second requirement was that there be no modifications of the computer. The braille terminal had to look like any other terminal to the computer. Still an additional re- quirement was that there be minimum modification In the terminal used. A "stunt-box" was installed in the teletype to furnish the required signals toathe Brailler. The stunt-box is a standard teletype part installed by teletype personnel. An electronic translator or code - more - Use copy created from Institute Archives record copy. © Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. News Office (AC0069) Braille input-output terminal -- 4 unit" between converter (i.e., a special rack of electronics) was constructed as the "interface codes to the appropriate the terminal and the embosser. The translator converts the teletype braille code required by the embosser. The embosser is sufficiently fast to follow the teletype. It embosses each symbol that is printed in the teletype printer. The technique of slaving the embosser to the teletype as well page printer makes it possible for the terminal to be used by sighted programmers the blind programmer as blind programmers. Simultaneous inkprint and braille printouts allow to work with sighted colleagues on a project with both having equivalent printouts. Mike's terminal is in a room at the Sensory Aids Center where he and others can had been concern experiment with variations and improvements as they arise. Also, there That concern di- early in the development about breakdowns, maintenance and reliabiltiy. with- minished, however, when Dalrymple went on vacation and Mike used the unit intensely out the need for service. Mike says he cannot overestimate the value of the system to him. "Nbt only is it possible to model and estimate systems of equations, but a tremendous means that It is quantity of data is stored in the system and kept updated," he says. "This or as a fully func- possible for the blind investigator to carry on his research independently im- tional member of a group. The tedious problems of data collection, which are literally possible for a blind individual, are to a large extent solved." - 30 - October 30, 1969 Use copy created from Institute Archives record copy. © Massachusetts Institute of Technology .