deskthority

I've been looking at products like this which are basically a sheet of decals that stick braille lettering onto them. No, I'm not blind, but I've been looking into so-called "nubs" (the touch-typing protusions on the F and J keys) anyhow ... I wonder if enough touch-typing on a braille haptic will actually train my fingertips to be sensitive to reading braille, doesn't hurt to try.

The products I've seen online are all around CDN$25-50, but I'm a cheap bastard and I think more than $5 isn't justified for a trivial project like this, at least so long as my vision doesn't decay. Can anyone recommend an inexpensive source for these braille stickysheets? Or suggest methods of manufacturing them - access to vinyls and vinyl cutter/plotters isn't an issue for me, nor is the computer layout work ... but any ideas about how to apply the braille dots into the material?

If you want something to do: drill a lot of little holes in your keycaps and mount pins through them! You'd get real metal caps as well!

I learned something related the other day... if you have severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, you can't read Braille ...

Also depends which Braille you want to read, if that's your goal. There's also a condensed/abbreviated form which cuts back on the real-estate a bit. If you've ever seen a whole book in Braille you'll know why...

FWIW we have a few of those decal keyboards at work (I work with the blind & partially sighted) and they don't get much use. There are a couple of large print (black with very bright yellow text) keyboards that occasionally come out, but mostly it's a case of touch typing with auditory feedback from speech synthesizers such as Jaws. We also have Braille reader portables which are a modern take on the old mechanical Braillers like the Perkins, and provide tactile readout via rows of bumps that raise and drop to form Braille characters.

Which would you rather lug about? This:



or one of these?



They have various USB/serial/memory card ports etc. on the back and are pretty good. Not cheap though.

Hmm, pinheads would work.

Is all braille exactly the same size, or is it acceptable to adjust the scale up/down a little? I'll admit near total ignorance about braille, aside from reading the wikipedia article.