Optacon: Memories

By DAVID FAUCHEUX

The optacon--the name is an acronym for optical tactile converter--was the first portable reading machine.

Consisting of a small camera attached to a display via a thin cable, it turned images into tactile shapes by means of vibrating pins.  If I recall correctly, it was invented by a scientist for his blind daughter in the mid 1970s.  This was several years before even the earliest synthetic speech reading machine, clunky with a funny garbled accent and the size of a microwave and the cost of a car, was introduced. 

I remember that day in eighth grade when we were introduced to the optacon.  I forget which group of people from where came to the school for the blind to demonstrate it.  I found it novel and interesting but tricky.  You had to glide the camera over each page of text, not swerving off each line and then read with the other hand which was resting on a shallow trough full of vibrating pins.  It could be confusing to me.  It sounded a bit like a mosquito attack.  My left index finger sometimes got tired of the vibrations.  I recall several times feeling like I was falling when I used it to read.  Some of my friends were whizzes.  Some still use one to read bills and to read the addresses on envelopes that they receive in the mail.  I had hoped one could be made that changed the print letters into Braille using refreshable Braille display technology--nothing doing, I was told!

I receive Dean Martineau's weekly tech sheet and the following announcement caused me to remember this nearly  forgotten chapter in my early life.

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1) The Optacon was the first portable reading device that was widely used by the blind, and many people still swear by it. Efforts are being made to keep it alive. You can find documentation and other information about it here.

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IMAGINE That!