Triangle: A Tri-Modal Access Program for Reading, Writing, and Doing Math
1998; Volume: 5; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1073-5127
AutoresJohn A. Gardner, Randy Lundquist, Steve Sahyun,
Tópico(s)Tactile and Sensory Interactions
Resumo1. Introduction TRIANGLE is a DOS and Windows 95 computer program intended for print-impaired students and professionals in math, science, and engineering. It includes: * a math/science word processor * a graphing calculator * a viewer for y versus x plots * a table viewer * the Touch-and-Tell Program for audio and/or braille-assisted reading of tactile figures on an external digitizing pad. The keyboard or any assistive device/software that emulates a keyboard may be used for input. TRIANGLE output may be viewed visually, audibly, and/or by braille. DOS TRIANGLE[1] has an on-line help file describing all editing, calculating, graph-viewing, table-browsing, and figure-reading commands. Several tutorials are also included with the distribution files. DOS TRIANGLE is available to anyone interested in trying it.[2] The expanded symbol set used with the mathematical word processor can be accessed with DOS screen readers only if the appropriate character tables are installed. Support is included for Vocal-Eyes speech screen reader and TSI braille displays. Instructions are included for use with other screen readers, but some expertise and effort on the part of the user is required. TRIANGLE menus and help files are in English, but the program should work with most languages using the roman alphabet. The new Windows 95 TRIANGLE (beta release expected in summer 1998) has all the features of DOS TRIANGLE but is self-voicing through any MS SAPI-compliant speech engine and will also be accessible in braille through any on-line screen display that supports the new MS Braille API. This version of the TRIANGLE program will be demonstrated during the presentation. 2. Windows TRIANGLE mathematical word processor The Windows TRIANGLE word processor is an RTF (rich text format) word processor whose character set includes typographic and foreign characters and the math symbol fonts of math editors bundled with MS Word or Word Perfect. TRIANGLE also utilizes special math and markup symbols to permit all scientific expressions (including fractions, superscripts, subscripts, and tabular arrays) to be written in a linear form. These characters may be entered through a Windows menu, with several of the most common characters having single-stroke short cuts. This is a particularly convenient format for blind users. Expressions may be entered and manipulated with the usual kinds of editing capabilities found in any text processor, such as the Windows clipboard for cutting and pasting. In addition TRIANGLE has a number of special editing and browsing capabilities that make it particularly convenient for reading and writing math and scientific expressions. For example, there are ten specially-addressable clipboards that allow a user to cut and paste several text selections without losing the last one every time a new item is saved. This facility provides significantly increased flexibility that is handy when manipulating math, solving algebraic equations, etc. There are several browsing features designed for ease of reading equations. These include enclosed commands that jump to the beginning of the next or previous enclosure and read aloud either the entire expression or the portion of that expression to the next enclosure. Enclosures include standard items such as parentheses, brackets, and braces, as well as markup characters defining numerator and denominator of fractions, complex superscripts, subscripts, or radicals. The user has a number of audio templates for representing math symbols and can custom- design them to personal preferences. Braille access poses a difficult problem, since there is no accepted braille representation for anything except letters. We have adopted the GS braille representation used in DOS TRIANGLE[2]. Although DOS TRIANGLE is restricted to 8-dot GS, Windows TRIANGLE can use either 8-dot or 6-dot GS codes. …
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