A friend of mine forwarded this little tidbit to me, and I thought
some here might be able to use it. By the way, if you have a weird
sense of humor you might want to consider if professor Lytic's middle
initial stands for "Electro"<grin>. Also, the student mentioned in
this article, Cary Supalo, is a NABS member.
Jim Rebman <jrebman@netcom.com>
Article begins here:
Giving blind students new tools for chemistry
WEST LAFAYETTE, IND.-Researchers at Purdue University have built
a computer program that translates chemical equations into Braille.
The program works with WordPerfect- software, a word processing-
package. Each equation in a WordPerfect document is embossed on a
separate piece of paper, using the Braille code, which consists of
various combinations of six raised dots.
Fred E. Lytic, a chemistry professor, and David Schleppenbach, a
graduate student in physical chemistry, wrote the translation program
to let such students as Cary Supalo work independently
The two are also working on other tools to help blind students study
science, including a way to let the program speak the symbols rather
than print them. Most blind people actually cant use braille says
Mr. Lytle
The program is available free on the World-Wide Web at:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/facilities/ sightlab/index.html
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