Date:         Thu, 5 Jan 1995 18:58:22 GMT
From: Damon Rose <Damon%DARO.DEMON.CO.UK@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>

December's 'Wired' magazine carried an article called 'Hot-wired braille
reader' which described a revolutionary new 8 key braille display mounted on
a mouse.  It has been devloped by the TiNi Alloy Company of San Leandro,
California. 

Existing braille displays have a static row of 20, 40 or 80s cells (usually)
which give access to only a small window of the screen at a time.  Further
(so the article goes) screen awareness is not forthcoming using this method. 

Using the new display is more akin to scanning the screen with one's eyes' or
reading a braille page.  It gives you the ability to scroll and navigate
simply. 

TiNi have made a prototype model of their new braille display which works
fine.  A commercially availabble model won't be available for a few years
however *sigh* 

The good news is that the display is likely to cost less than $100. I'll
repeat that for those of you who think I omitted a zero - it will cost less
than one hundred US dollars!!!!! 

This is how it works (directlly quoted from Wired, December 94): 

"nitinol wires flip quickly up and down to form braille letters.  Nitinol has
a temperature dependent memory:  it tkaes one shape when heated and another
when cool.  In the braille reader, electricity will heat the wires" 

        for more information, E-mail:

        tini1@holonet.net

Does anyone here have any thoughts or information about TiNi's apparently
revolutionary device?  It sounds fantastic, out of this world and dirt cheap
(relatively speaking) 

Could this be the future?  How can you read and scroll at the same time? Two
hands?  Hmmm ... could be difficult, but maybe that's coz I've got a lack of
information. 

If anyone out there has the power to send me a prototype model, I'd be happy
to test run it :) 

Damon Rose
Kent, England