Braille media type

I noticed in Al's discussion points relating to the media type issue, a
suggestion that braille displays could be treated as terminal or TTY
output devices. This is only true in the most primitive applications in
in which a braille display is being used effectively as a screen reader;
computer braille codes are used to give an exact, one to one
correspondence between each character on the screen and a braille cell.
However, such an approach is extremely inefficient, and most braille
readers prefer to use the standard braille codes (for literary text,
mathematics etc.) which have been defined by various national and
international bodies. This often involves a system of contractions and
other conventions that are unique to braille. Furthermore, the formatting
of a document so that it will be optimally presented on a braille display
is essentially different from the presentation that would be appropriate
to an 80 character by 24 line terminal device.

I hope that Al was not suggesting that the media type of BRAILLE be
abandoned in favour of TTY.

Received on Friday, 17 October 1997 20:31:23 UTC