Journal of Medical Systems, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1986 An Inexpensive and Portable Talking-Tactile Terminal for the Visually Handicapped* Arthur I. Karshmer, Harley R. Myler,~ and Richard D. Davis The visually handicapped computer user or programmer is faced with a very difficult task in interfacing with computing hardware. The cy'pes of equipment currently available for this pur- pose fall into one of several general categories: expensive, nonportable, and domain-specific. In the current paper, we describe a new terminal device designed spec((ically for the visually handicapped that answers all of the problems mentioned above. The work is already under way, with a prototype model is currently in use by a visually handicapped programmer on the develop- ment team. In the remainder of this paper we will present a report on the current status of our project as well as plans and milestones for future work. INTRODUCTION The visually handicapped constitute a small but significant segment of our society. While the number of legally blind and visually impaired people in the United States is only about 2% of the population, the percentage of this group that receive a higher education is approximately three to four times greater than that of the sighted population. 1 Given this greater emphasis on higher education, we can conclude that the visually handicapped, as a group, will be quite likely to be users or programmers of computers to a higher degree than the sighted portion of our population. The everyday lives as well as professional lives of the visually handicapped should be the beneficiary of our new technologies. In particular, the time seems right to bring to market a wide variety of microprocessor-based tools to help the visually handicapped better cope with what must seem to be a very hostile environment. To this end, there is a great deal of research being conducted in the areas of general reading of printed mate- From the Computing Research Laboratory and Computer Science Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003. * This paper was presented at the 19th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Honolulu, Ha- waii, January 1986, and is republished here with permission, ? Dr. Myler is currently employed by the Martin Marietta Corporation, Orlando, Florida. 229 0148-5598/86/0600-0229505.00/0 © 1986 Plenum Publishing Corporation