WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) provides comprehensive support for Freedom Scientific's range of Braille displays - Focus 40/80 and the PacMate portable Braille display. The feature is available under Windows 98 and later, and enables WTC to be used with a Freedom Scientific Braille display without running a screen reader on your computer.

Direct use of a Braille display is currently only supported for Braille telecommunications or one-to-one communications where no other feature of the software is required. It is ideal for use with VersaBraille emulation.

The driver provides the following support options for Braille users:

6/8 dot Braille (8 by default). See Configuring the Braille Dot Output.
Variable Braille dot firmness.
Us or British Braille translator (US by default).
Use of any section of the Braille line (full length by default, automatically detected).

The Focus Braille input keyboard for perkins-style typing is also fully supported, with the following features:

6/8 dot keyboard configuration independent of the dots setting for the Braille display. You can have a 6-dot keyboard where dots 7 and 8 are ignored, or use dot 7 to enter a shifted character and/or dots 7 and 8 to enter a control character.
Pressing and releasing a Focus Shift key causes the next Braille character to be shifted, or you can press a Focus shift key in combination with the Braille dots.
Pressing and releasing a Shift or Control key on the computer keyboard causes the next Braille character to be Shifted or treated as a control character, respectively. The Alt and Windows logo keys similarly modify the next Braille character if these keys are being filtered by WTC instead of performing their normal Windows functions.
Several Braille chord commands using the space bar in combination with Braille dots are provided to perform operations such as entering a carriage return, toggling caps lock and resetting the communications file. Chord commands can also be used to simulate the Shift, Control, Alt and Windows logo keys.
Chord commands can be turned off if they present typing difficulties, so that chording a letter with the space bar types the letter followed by space.
Dot 8 can be used as the ENTER key, configurable.
Dot 7 can be used as the backspace key, configurable.

In addition, with a suitable computer keyboard, you can set it to use certain keys as Braille dots to provide perkins-style keyboard emulation. This means that you can still have Braille-style typing available even with a Braille display that does not have its own Braille keys.

Page url: http://wtcmanual.wintextware.com/index.html?bdd_freedom_scientific_braille_dis.htm

Freedom Scientific Braille Displays