Optophone
With the Opto Phone, which was developed by the Frenchman Edmund Edward Fournier d' Albe, the development of electronic reading systems for the blind began.
History
Fournier d' Albe
Fournier presented a 1912 device before, he called Opto Phone, could find with the blind light sources. This unit had good press, but there was criticism of the blind men, because they had more fundamental problems to find as light sources and windows. Then put Fournier 1913 in England before an advanced Opto Phone. Photo sensors now detected black font, the unit converted this into acoustic signals, which could then interpret the blind. In the beginning, the blind could read with the device only three words per minute. Later, a company for optical instruments, the Barr and Stout Ltd.. , Further developed the device and turned it into a commercial product.
Raoul Hausmann
Published in 1922 the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann edited by Ilya Ehrenburg and El Lissitzky trilingual magazine " Вещь - Objet - object " a text via an opto Phone, which was with the help of photo sensors light into sound and can convert vice versa. But he did not have enough money to build it too.
On September 25, 1934 Raoul Hausmann and Daniel Broido reported another Opto Phone to the English patent. The patent was officially registered on 27 April 1936. It must have been a calculating machine on photoelectric basis. Later sold his patent to Broido home to pay for his flight from the Nazis can.
The Bataille opto Phone
In 1957 the old opto - Phone idea of Fournier was taken up again. The Bataille Opto - Phone came out. Was based on the ( albeit limited ) success is that they put more on the training than on the technical development value. Also, it no longer made so much noise and you could read a little faster (if you moved the records by hand 19 ( English ) words per minute, if you used it with a mechanical aid 38 words / minute. Measurement of such rates must to consider that the only alternative for the blind at that time was the sighted reading assistant.