I am the world’s first totally blind physicist, and, at 52, I’ve been using Braille 48 years. Not that Braille is my only medium. I type, use speech, opticons, and raised line drawing kits. All these things help me do my work, designing radio telescopes and computer algorithms.
This is to convince you that I know my subject matter. Tiger doesn’t just make Braille, it makes BRAILLE.
The Tiger can certainly make the kind of Braille text everyone is used to in a quality unexcelled by any other embosser. However, it can also make Braille of a kind never before touched by human hand.
This embosser can make three-dimensional Braille. It’s like going from a mechanical phonograph to a CD or from coarse sandpaper to the finest relief map. You can get graphics, or pictures, from a snapshot of your girl friend to a deep field galactic cluster. Is that neat, or what? Now. Here is the magic. All this detail and phenomenal verisimilitude comes virtually at the touch of a few keys. Many marvelous Braille “images” have been made by intensive human effort. With Tiger, it’s all software. If your printer will ink a picture for a sighted person, Tiger will emboss the corresponding tactile representation. I emphasize corresponding. You touch what someone else sees, and, after a little training, even totally blind guys like me can understand the zany two-dimensional representation of the three dimensional world that sighted people work with every day.
This embosser is a revolution. It will allow everyone to have access to what only a few privileged people have been able to touch and comprehend. Take a look at what Tiger can do. It will show you not a new view of the world, but a new world to discover.