Greetings:
Please fine attached a letter I sent to Mcafee Associates, makers
of the well-known AntiVirus program. This is another example of
how technology is once again taking a step past the blind.
Regards,
Curtis Chong
curtisc@winternet.com
=================================================================
From: Curtis Chong <curtisc@winternet.com>
Subject: Latest Version of Antivirus Software
To: support@mcafee.com (support@mcafee.com)
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 08:52:26 -0600 (CST)
20 Northeast 2nd Street
Apartment 908
Minneapolis, MN 55413-2265
November 18, 1995
Mcafee Associates
270 Walsh Avenue
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Greetings:
My name is Curtis Chong. I am totally blind. I am a registered
user of the Mcafee AntiVirus program for DOS. The first version I
acquired was 2.2.6. I was extremely pleased that on the
distribution diskette, documentation for the program was provided
in ASCII text. This documentation was easy for me to read using my
PC and a DOS text editor. This and the fact that I can control the
software from the DOS command line makes Mcafee's AntiVirus program
extremely useful to and popular with blind computer users like me.
In fact, in my capacity as President of the National Federation of
the Blind in Computer Science, I began saying good things about the
program to the many blind computer users with whom I regularly come
into contact.
Recently, I downloaded Version 2.2.7 of the AntiVirus software from
the Mcafee bulletin board system. I was dismayed to read the
following text from the Errata for that release:
The VirusScan documentation is now available online. In
addition to being environmentally friendly, the online
documentation is easy to use and puts the information you
need at your fingertips. It will be necessary to download
the Acrobat Reader that you prefer for DOS (ACRODOS.ZIP)
or for Windows (ACROWIN.ZIP) and the Manual itself
(VS22DOC.ZIP).
I am sure that this is a vast improvement in documentation access
for your sighted customers, and for them, you should continue this
effort. However, you should be aware that for the blind, this
represents a significant step backward. Documents in PDF format
are *NOT* *ACCESSIBLE* to us. The Acrobat Reader for DOS cannot be
used at all because it displays the text of a document in graphical
format, a format that is not accessible to the screen readers we
*MUST* use to operate the PC.
I am told that Adobe Systems is working on an Acrobat Reader that
will enable blind computer users to view PDF documents in Windows
and in DOS. So far, this effort has not resulted in any program
that we can use today.
As a registered user, I feel somewhat cheated by what you have done
to your documentation. Of course, to protect myself, I have kept
the text documentation from Version 2.2.6 of the AntiVirus program,
the version which I originally purchased. As long as no
significant changes are made to the program's documentation, this
will serve me well. If, however, significant changes are made to
the software and its documentation, I will not have independent
access to the material which informs me about those changes.
Please consider carefully what you are doing to current and future
blind customers who do not have access to your documentation in PDF
format. I ask that you consider maintaining your documentation in
two forms: PDF and ASCII text, providing the latter to customers
upon request.
Yours sincerely,
Curtis Chong
Internet: curtisc@winternet.com
>From curtisc@winternet.com Sat Nov 18 08:51:52 1995
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From: Curtis Chong <curtisc@winternet.com>
Posted-Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 08:51:57 -0600
Message-Id: <199511181451.IAA07324@parka>
Subject: The Need for a DOS PDF Reader
To: lmcquarr@adobe.com (Liz McQuarrie)
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 08:51:57 -0600 (CST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 1196
Status: O
Hello Liz:
It has been a few months since I last had a chance to communicate
with you. Through the various LISTSERV's to which I subscribe, I
hear that the work is coming along quite nicely with regard to
the Windows version of the PDF reader that would enable blind
people to review PDF documents. In the long run, this work will
have tremendous payoffs for the blind, but in the short run....
I am currently using the DOS version of the Mcafee AntiVirus
program. I bring to your attention the following piece of
information I just received when I downloaded the latest version
(2.2.7) of the software. This is just one more indication of how
technology continues to move away from the blind.
Regards,
Curtis Chong
curtisc@winternet.com
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