The Braille Must Go Through: A Review of Two Lower-Cost Braille Printers
By Zelvin, Lynn; Access World, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 5-15Publication Date: November 2002
Article reviewing two Braille printers: (1) the Porta-Theil from Sighted Electronics and (2) the Braille Blazer from Freedom Scientific. The Braille Blazer is a 12-pound Braille printer measuring 13.5 by 8 by 5 inches. The Blazer comes with a standard AC power cord and parallel cable. The Blazer prints on tractor feed fan-fold paper or plastic only, and can print 6- or 8-dot Braille and graphics. A built-in speech synthesizer can be used while the printer is running, and the Blazer has character sets for printing in English, Spanish, Japanese, French, French Canadian, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Slovak, and Russian. The Blazer can print Braille at 15 characters per second. The Porta-Thiel weighs 10 pounds and measures 15 inches wide by 10 inches deep by 4 inches high at its highest point. Three buttons are used for all printer functions. Two knobs allow for the independent control of the pressure for each side of the page when printing. A standard computer keyboard can be connected directly to the Porta-Thiel, allowing it to be used as a Braille writer. Character sets are available to emboss English, German, Spanish, French and British English. The Porta-Thiel can print at a rate of 15 characters per second.
Assistive Products Discussed: PORTA-THIEL
BRAILLE BLAZER
Published by: AFB Press (Website:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=46)
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) (Web Site: http://www.afb.org )
