Braille machine

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The device appears to be made of injection molding, it has rounded contours and a blue-gray hammer finish. Nine keys can be seen in front: in the middle the wide space key, to the left and right of it the keys for points 1 to 3 (left) and 4 to 6 (right). Right on the outside, smaller and a bit separated, the line switch (left) and the back switch (right). On a step in the housing above these buttons there is a lever on the right-hand side with which the embossing head can be moved. At the very top you can see the small levers of the paper release on the outermost edges of the housing, and a fold-out handle is attached in the middle.
Perkins Brailler
Typewriter for the blind from Herde & Wendt, Berlin around 1912, Technical Museum Vienna
The machine is T-shaped, has a massive construction and is painted green. The part facing the user is narrow and rests on a dark base. It has seven large white keys: six for points 1 to 6 and in the middle between them the space bar protruding forward with its widened end. The upper, rear part is arranged transversely to it and is reminiscent of the paper carrier trolley of a typewriter. The paper rollers and the knobs on the right and left are clearly visible. In the middle is a nameplate with the designation "BLINDENSTUDIENANSTALT - Blista - MARBURG-LAHN-GERMANY"
Further development of the sheet-fed press according to Oskar Picht . This machine was produced by BliStA in Marburg around the 1980s . Similar machines are still being built today. Special feature: The area of ​​the sheet of paper next to the print head is easily accessible, which makes it much easier to create tables etc.

A Braille machine is a technical tool to help blind and highly visually impaired people Braille or Braille write.

A braille machine has only six or eight keys, often a space bar, and several function keys. If there is no space bar, the space step is triggered by lightly pressing any other key so that no embossing occurs. The individual letters are represented by striking a chord on several keys.

Distinction

A basic distinction is made between sheet-fed machines (for writing on Braille paper) and shorthand machines (with roll strips). These machines enabled blind negotiation stenographers to write quickly.

There are purely mechanical and electrical braille machines. The first were developed around 1880; previously, writing was done exclusively with a braille tablet and pen. Due to their small size, light weight and special versions for special paper formats (such as index cards), braille tablets are still used - similar to how ballpoint pens and notepads were not replaced by the typewriter.

The Perkins Brailler

The most widely used mechanical braille machine today is the Perkins Brailler, named after Thomas Handasyd Perkins , the sponsor of the Perkins School for the Blind founded by Samuel Gridley Howe : a simple typewriter for writing braille. Each of the six keys corresponds to one of the six points in Braille, which is read and written by blind people. In addition to these six keys, which can be pressed simultaneously or individually and thus emboss the various letters and characters in the braille paper, there is a space bar, a back key (one character back) and a line feed at the front of the machine. The return of the lines is done manually with an additional key , just like a typewriter for black letters.

There are knobs on the side for further transport of the paper on which the text is embossed. The A4 format sheet is first completely rolled up inside the machine, on a roll, and then rolled out again line by line while writing.

Besides braille paper can be described with the Perkins Brailler, for example, self-adhesive Braille film.

Others

Typically, only six-point Braille can be written with mechanical braille machines. For writing eight-point Braille ( Eurobraille ), the electrical Elotype is mostly used today.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deutsches Blindenmuseum Berlin (DBM): Braille opens up worlds

Web links