oh yeah. thermoform paper. the problem is that any heat tended to permanently deform it. it did produce some nice sharp braille.
the other thing which works well for storing long term braille (like an index card) is the plastic backing out of bacon packages. that stuff is heavy enough that braille will almost last longer than you do. the old steel perkiness brailler has been around since the late 1880's. they were manual units (no electrics were made until someone made the first computerized units back in the late 1980's). since then, the price point on these devices hanse't changed appreciably, even though manufacturing costs have gone down. this leads me to the conclusion that the price is being held artificially high in an effort to maximize the amount of funds that can be acquired via government contracts. that pretty much leaves out those on the lower economic rungs (which is slightly more than 90% of the blind population in the US). there are days when I seem to rant too much. -eric On Jul 28, 2012, at 2:41 PM, Wojciech Puchar wrote: >> Especially since they were invented back in the 1980's (at the latest). I played with a prototype at a meeting > > improvement could be done to be able to print on some special plastic "paper" that could be then at other end "ironed" out and recycled. > > I really feel sad that blind people, in XXI century, have to suffer by using "screen readers" or other strange things instead of just having TERM=dumb, and quickly read what's printed with fingers, and type commands. > > And performing as good as years ago unix pioneers using teletypes. > > Yes - full screen editors, mc etc.. are great but only if you have working eyes.
