STAND-ALONE READING MACHINES: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW by David Andrews From the Editor: There is perhaps no more attractive- sounding piece of technology for the blind today than the stand- alone reading machine. Just place a page of printed text on the glass, press a button, and sit back to listen to a tireless voice read at whatever speed you choose. That is the fantasy, and as improvements are made in this exciting new technology, it comes closer and closer to reality. But choosing and operating a machine successfully are not nearly as simple as the promotional brochures make it sound, and the cost still seems very high to most of us. If you are contemplating the investment of your hard- earned funds in one of these marvels or even if you merely wish to dream about what to invest in when you win the lottery, read the following article to learn what an objective technology expert thinks about the various options in this important field. David Andrews is the Director of the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore. He understands the complexities of the various machines and manages to explain them in plain words. Here is what he has to say: The most dynamic and competitive category in adaptive technology for the blind today is that of print reading systems. Included in this category are a variety of systems that scan the printed page and turn its contents into synthesized speech. These include both the so-called stand-alone reading machines and computer-based reading systems. Until just over a year ago there was only one stand-alone reading machine; there are now five. These include the Kurzweil Personal Reader and the Reading Edge from Kurzweil Computer products; An Open Book from Arkenstone, Inc.; the Robotron TR320 and Rainbow from Robotron Pty. Ltd.; and the ReadMan Pronounce from Schamex Research. What follows is a review of the four major machines currently available. The Kurzweil Personal Reader is left out because, though it is still for sale, its optical character recognition technology and features are outdated. The Reading Edge offers better performance and more accuracy at a lower price. The two Robotron machines, the TR320 and Rainbow, are identical except for speech, so I counted them as one machine to get the total of five. I evaluated the Rainbow since it offers significantly better speech than the TR320. Descriptions and Features The Reading Edge Kurzweil Computer Products The Reading Edge is the latest stand-alone offering from Kurzweil Computer Products, a division of Xerox Imaging systems. It replaces the Kurzweil Personal Reader, which has been sold for the past five or six years. The new machine was first introduced in the fall of 1992. The Reading Edge is a compact, one-piece unit with an eighteen-key attached keypad. It measures twenty inches wide by seven and a half inches high by fifteen inches deep and weighs twenty-three pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a half by eleven and a half inches. With the optional carrying case the machine can be used as a semi-portable unit. Aside from the question of portability, the small, one-piece design is a nice bonus because it can save valuable desk real estate. Like its predecessor, the KPR, the Reading Edge comes with a bookedge scanner that scans to the edge of the glass which is aligned with the front edge of the machine. This design is handy for reading books since the spine can be put along the edge of the glass, allowing the machine to scan the print, including that closest to the binding. The availability of the bookedge scanner is one of the strongest pluses for this machine and should be heavily weighted by would-be purchasers who read a lot of books. It is possible to read books with the other scanners, but it takes a little more work and ingenuity. The scanner surface on the Reading Edge is somewhat smaller than that of the earlier Kurzweil machine. It measures eight and a half inches by eleven and three quarters inches. If the page is over eleven inches long, however, it is possible to do two scans and stitch the resulting pieces of text together. The Reading Edge sits at a slight angle--that is, the front is higher than the back. This helps in reading books since the angle helps to hold them in place. There is also a lid covering the scanner glass, which holds books and documents in place. The front of the machine contains earphone and recording jacks. There is also a compartment for storing the keypad. The rear of the machine contains a serial port and the power cord. On the right side are knobs to change volume and reading speed. The latter is a nice feature because it allows the user to speed up and slow down the built-in DEC-Talk synthesizer, even while it is reading a document. No one else offers this feature, although Arkenstone is adding it to the next upgrade of its software, due later this summer. The Reading Edge also has a small credit card-sized piece which plugs into the machine, which contains its software. This design will facilitate software upgrades in the future. While it does not affect the operation of the Reading Edge, there is one peculiar thing about its appearance. The front of the unit contains a Braille label which says: the reading edge a kurzweil reader xerox imaging systems The Braille used is of a nonstandard size and is spaced improperly. Further, some, but not all, appropriate Grade II contractions are used, and there is no capitalization. The effect is sloppy considering that otherwise the machine is pretty well designed. Some of the commands used by the Reading Edge are the same as those used by the Kurzweil Personal Reader, in particular, those used to control the reading itself, such as "read previous sentence," "read current word," etc. Overall the machine is fairly simple to operate. Of the group discussed here, only the Robotron Rainbow and TR320 are more straightforward. The Reading Edge does not have the ability to control the brightness setting automatically. There are sixteen possible manual settings. The machine will determine the orientation of a page automatically and read it regardless of the direction of the print. The Reading Edge has about 220K of memory for storage of documents, and the contents of the memory do not disappear when the machine is turned off. While documents must be erased or sent to a PC eventually, this temporary storage is convenient. The method used to send documents to an external device using the serial port is the same as on the KPR and is cumbersome at best. Kurzweil has developed an external floppy disk drive option for the Reading Edge, which will be offered in its next upgrade. This accessory uses the serial port-based 3.5-inch floppy disk drive sold by Blazie Engineering for $495. Another unique feature of the Reading Edge is the use of six keys on the keypad to write Braille. These keys can be used to name or edit a document, write short notes, or enter corrections into the synthesizer's pronunciation exceptions dictionary. It has a Grade II back-translator so that the user can write in Grade II Braille. For beginners the machine has a startup message that provides brief instructions on how to use it, but the message can be turned off. The Reading Edge has a two-level help system. Like the KPR it has a nominator key, which can be tapped before pressing any of the other keys. The second key will then be briefly described. If only the second key is pressed, only its name or current function will be spoken. But tapping the nominator key and then holding the key down results in a full explanation of its function. This help system works quite well and is available at any time. Like the KPR, the Reading Edge can be used as a speech synthesizer for a PC equipped with a screen review program that supports the Kurzweil machine. However, Kurzweil's implementation of the DEC-Talk is somewhat nonstandard, so the Reading Edge must be explicitly supported by the screen review program. Existing DEC-Talk or KPR settings will not work. The Reading Edge does have the ability to add inflection to the DEC-Talk, which makes it sound considerably better than implementations without it, such as the one used in An Open Book. However, in my opinion none of the new DEC-Talk units sounds as good as the original ones introduced in the mid 1980's. In particular the pronunciation of some vowels sounds distorted to me. Both Kurzweil and Arkenstone are about to offer software upgrades to their machines. Among other things both upgrades offer support for additional languages. Check with the companies to get an exact list. I have been able to work with beta test versions of both companies' upgrades. Of the two, the one from Kurzweil is more significant. It is being called Version 2.0; the company has been selling Version 1.01. Kurzweil says that, among other things, the upgrade has improved optical character recognition capabilities. A setting for scanning paper faxes has been added and does offer significant improvements in this area. Other than that, the recognition improvements seem to be minor. The upgrade also offers support for the Blazie Engineering external disk drive. This is a 3.5-inch 1.44-megabyte external drive which can operate on batteries. The system offers a simple and convenient way to save scanned materials as MS-DOS compatible files. This feature, which works well, is an expensive but valuable option. The Reading Edge now permits Scan Queuing--that is, the machine can be told to scan the next page while it is still recognizing the current page, and it will do so once it has finished. Previously the machine responded with an error message when the user attempted to initiate a scan before the current page was completed. The other major alteration is the inclusion of an additional editing mode. Previously editing of documents, titles, and footnotes was done with a six-key Braille keyboard which was a part of the standard keypad. Now there is also an editing mode for the non-Braille user. The same six keys can be used to cycle through lists of letters and punctuation marks, choosing the ones needed. This is similar to the system offered by Arkenstone's An Open Book. While it is a little tedious, it does work. The Reading Edge upgrade will be priced at $165. An Open Book Arkenstone, Inc. An Open Book from Arkenstone is a two-piece unit consisting of a Hewlett-Packard IIp scanner and a central processing unit. There is also a small seventeen-key pad used for controlling the machine. The scanner is eleven inches wide, by fifteen and three quarters inches deep, by three inches high and weighs thirteen pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a half inches by twelve inches. The processing unit is seven and a half inches wide, by seventeen and three quarters inches high, by ten and three quarters inches deep and weighs twenty-one and a half pounds. The actual name of this machine is "An Open Book," not "The Open Book" or "Open Book." It seems a little silly to me, but it is their machine, and they can call it what they wish. The scanner is a flat, rectangular device with a lid covering a glass plate. The lid, which is hinged at the back, protects the glass and holds the document in place. To use the system, the lid is raised and the document is placed directly on the glass. Many people have come to refer to both stand-alone reading machines and PC-based reading systems as "scanners." Technically this is not accurate. The scanner is simply a device which takes an electronic picture of a printed page. This picture or image is then transferred to the processing unit of the reading machine, or to a standard computer in the case of a PC-based system. This image is then analyzed to extract the text, and the resultant text is turned into synthesized speech. The main part of the Arkenstone An Open Book is the processing unit. It is based on the Ready-To-Read computer introduced about a year and a half ago. This machine, in other words, is based on an IBM-compatible computer designed by Arkenstone. When used as a reading machine, it does not function as a computer, and all you can do with it is scan and read. However, with the addition of a screen review program and standard keyboard it can be converted into an IBM-compatible machine. This can be an advantage to someone who just wants a reading machine now but may want to upgrade to a full PC later. The system unit is more vertical in shape than many PC's. The front contains a slider control for volume as well as a 3.5- inch floppy disk drive. The back contains standard expansion slots, serial and parallel ports, a video output port, and a jack to connect the keypad or a keyboard. The right side of the unit has a small compartment to store the keypad, an on/off switch, and a reset button. There is also a flap which can be raised, providing access to the expansion slots. Arkenstone says that it designed the physical unit with markings and other aids to make it easier for a blind person to use. I for one have never had a problem sticking disks in disk drives, identifying expansion slots, etc., and I know other blind people who have done it without markings for years. I find this special design to be of no value. It might be of some value to a new user, but I doubt it. The system also produces a variety of tones and beeps to provide indications about what it is doing and that it is still working. These can be of some use. Along with the scanner and main unit, the Arkenstone has a small keypad attached to it with a cable. This is used to control the different functions of the machine. It actually looks like the numeric keypad found on the right side of 101-key PC keyboards. Current An Open Books can be purchased with either this small keypad, a compact keyboard, or a regular 101-key keyboard. Arkenstone can also install a screen review program. An Open Book is controlled by using a series of menus. Choices on these menus are accessed by using four keys on the keypad, which represent arrow keys. The user moves up and down between items much as with many PC applications. Once an item is selected, its individual choices are accessed by using the right and left arrow keys. Choices are made by hitting what is called the Select Key, which has a raised dot. The system has Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced menus. The Beginner and Intermediate menus do not make all options available to the user and may be useful to the new user since there are fewer choices to confuse him or her. One drawback to this system, as it is currently designed, is that it takes a number of keystrokes to change many items. One must select an item, move to an individual choice, select it, and then press the Escape Key the proper number of times to back out of the menu system. This machine has three basic modes: the Reading Mode, the Scanning Mode, and the Control Menus. When reading a document, one might hit the Escape Key to leave the Document Reader prior to hitting the Scan Key to scan another page. Since the Scan Key is a dedicated key, it should be possible to go directly from Reading Mode to Scanning Mode at any time, but it is not. An Open Book does have the ability to control contrast automatically. Arkenstone was the first to offer this feature, and it generally works well and is very useful. You can also control the contrast manually for problem pages. There are a hundred levels of adjustment available when you choose a "Custom Setting." There are also settings for Normal Contrast, Darken Page, and Lighten Page. The unit can also determine the direction in which the print goes on the page and read it, whether it is right side up, upside down, or sideways. This is a great time- saver for a blind person working alone. While it adds a few seconds to the recognition process, it is worth the time to most people, and the feature can be turned off. Different DEC-Talk voices can be assigned to indicate normal, underlined, bold, and italic print. A different voice can also be assigned to the Menus. The Arkenstone machine also has provisions for batch scanning--that is, one can scan (take pictures of) a number of pages all at once, then have An Open Book do the character recognition at a later time--like when you are at lunch. It takes only about ten seconds to scan a page, while recognition can take from thirty seconds to three minutes per page, depending on the amount of text, the complexity of the layout, and the number of fonts used. This can be a great time-saver for those big jobs. Once the text is scanned and recognized, it is automatically saved on the system's hard disk. It is then possible to name a document and save it in a category. The system comes with a number of categories already set up, such as bills, books, brochures, general, letters, manuals, recipes, etc. It is possible to establish your own categories as well. The process for naming documents and creating categories is a little cumbersome since one uses the arrow keys to select one letter at a time, rotating through a list of all possible choices. An Open Book, in addition to batch scanning, can scan and recognize a page, then read it, or use the Quick Speech Mode, in which speech is generated faster. However, it does not work very well. It is choppy and doesn't save much time. An Open Book comes with a built-in 3.5-inch 1.44-megabyte floppy disk drive. It is possible to save files to this drive--a real bonus to someone with a PC or to someone who wants to exchange materials with another person. The system can save files in a variety of word processor and other application formats-- over fifty-five of them. The upcoming Arkenstone upgrade, which will be offered free of charge to all An Open Book and Open Book Unbound users, consists primarily of bug-fixes and minor feature-adjustments. In my opinion the most significant addition is the ability to adjust the reading speed of the DEC-Talk synthesizer while it is reading a document without interrupting reading or losing one's place. While the feature does not work as smoothly as Kurzweil's hardware-based notched knob system, it does work and is a great convenience. It is also now possible to read a multipage document continuously instead of page by page and to jump to any page in the Document Reader. The Rainbow Robotron Pty. Ltd. The Robotron machine, which is from Australia, comes in two models, the Rainbow and the TR320. Other than the speech the two are identical. The Rainbow contains a DEC-Talk speech synthesizer. The TR320 has the same Australian-accented voice as the Eureka A4, also made by Robotron. Most people, including some Australians who have visited the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind, have trouble understanding the Robotron voice. It is, in my opinion, the most difficult voice to understand that we have in the Center. Most Americans, me included, find it virtually impossible to understand. One can adjust to it to some degree, but not much. With the TR320 Robotron added both American and English voices, but they are no more understandable. I have chosen to review the Rainbow because I can understand it. The Rainbow is a relatively compact one-piece unit. It measures twelve and three quarters inches wide, by five inches high, by twenty and a half inches deep and weighs eighteen and three quarters pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a half inches by fourteen inches. The front panel contains eight keys, which are used to control the machine. The back panel contains the power cord, a serial port, and a port for future expansion. The on/off switch is on the right side. The scanning surface is on the top, of course, and the lid is hinged at the back. The machine is very simple to operate and well designed. It scans and starts reading faster then any of the other machines reviewed here. There are four arrow keys, which are shaped so as to make their function obvious. These arrows are used to navigate within the text or to move up and down a menu used to change options. Once the desired option is reached, the right and left arrows are used to review the choices. There is only one menu and no choice selection, as in An Open Book--the choice just spoken is the one which will apply. As with the Eureka A4, the buttons are rubber and rock back and forth a little. This means that they do not reliably change a setting or initiate an operation when pressed. This problem doesn't occur often, but if the edge of a key is pressed, it may not catch. The Rainbow will automatically determine the orientation of a page, but it will not automatically set the contrast. There are only seven contrast settings, which may not be a wide enough range for some purposes. The manual for the Rainbow came on tape and in print. There was no Braille manual or reference card. The manual was short and clear, but the Rainbow itself has no on-line help. The DEC-Talk synthesizer does produce some extraneous noise, which is annoying. A hissing sound is fairly constant and distracting. This is not true of DEC-Talk synthesizers in the other reading machines. In its favor, the Rainbow does offer inflection to the DEC-Talk, as does the Reading Edge. This improves the listenability. There is a set of commands to control the machine from an external computer. It is also possible to send both text and image files between the two devices. The ReadMan Pronounce Schamex Research The ReadMan Pronounce from Schamex Research is the newest reading machine on the market. Like the others it uses a DEC-Talk speech synthesizer. The ReadMan Pronounce is a two-piece machine with an attached thirty-one-key pad and a joystick control. The two pieces, processing unit and scanner, are the same size, so that the scanner sits on top of the processor, effectively making it a one-piece unit. The stacked unit measures eleven inches wide, by sixteen inches deep, by five inches high and weighs twenty-four pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a half inches by twelve inches. It uses a Hewlett-Packard IIp scanner, as does An Open Book. The front of the main unit contains a 3.5-inch 1.44-megabyte floppy disk drive. The on/off switch and all the connectors for the ReadMan Pronounce are on the back of this unit. All functions are controlled from the keypad, which looks like the right side of a PC keyboard: the numeric keypad, the four-key inverted T, the six keys above the inverted T, and the three additional keys above this last group. There are two additional keys at the upper right of the keypad. The keypad is complex and not well thought out. Most functions are controlled by one of the seventeen keys on the numeric keypad section. There are three modes of operation-- reading, saving and retrieving files, and changing options. Each key has a different function in each mode. Schamex has assigned each key a letter designation. These are not logical. A is the first key from the left in the second row from the bottom. B is to its right, and C is to B's right. D is the first key from the left in the third row up, etc. These designations go up through I. Then J is the first key from the left in the bottom row, and the Help Key is to its right. K is to the right of the Help Key. I don't know why the Help Key wasn't given a letter, except that all the letters have been assigned, and still there are additional keys. Further, someone may have felt that Help was important enough to get a name. Nevertheless, all this is not very logical. The remaining key designations go across the bottom, up the right side, and across the top like a backward print C. Further, the key used to initiate scanning is the second key from the right in the top row. All the other machines make the Scan Key a large one in an obvious place. Not so the ReadMan. The joystick is used to control reading and scanning functions. Some people may find it useful, and it may be of some value to physically disabled persons. In its default setting the ReadMan Pronounce produces a long tone after each key is pressed. Then the command is executed. Since the machine is sluggish in its response anyway, this means that there is a wait of over a second for anything to happen after pressing a key. This tone system can be turned off, but the responsiveness is still not very good. This machine strikes me as something that was designed for blind people by sighted people and shown to us for our input as an afterthought. The ReadMan has the ability to adjust contrast automatically. It can also be set manually, and there are nine possible settings. However, the machine cannot automatically determine the orientation of a page and adjust for it. It can read print in either portrait or landscape mode--that is horizontally or vertically. But it must be told the mode, and there is only one right way to orient the page in the machine. If it is wrong, garbage will be generated. This has to be considered a major drawback of the ReadMan Pronounce. The ReadMan can be very slow in the speed with which it processes pages. The more trouble it has deciphering the print, the longer it will take. This is true for all the machines, but the ReadMan Pronounce is the slowest of the group. The ReadMan has a complete help system: the help mode produces the name and full explanation of any key that is pressed. The machine can also be set at the Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced level. This controls the length of messages and prompting received in normal operation. One unique feature of the ReadMan is the presence of an on-line manual. The system does work well, although the on-line manual is not particularly well written. Some of the wording is awkward, and the grammar is not always very good. The same problems also exist in the printed manual. Since the company is run by Iranians for whom English is not the first language, it would appear that this is the explanation of these problems. There is no Braille or cassette manual. It is possible to save scanned materials as files. Each file is assigned a number by the user. It is not possible to name files in any other way, and there are no categories for files as in An Open Book. Scanning and Reading Accuracy The thing that interests most people is how accurately these machines scan and read documents. I have developed a set of standard documents that I use to test optical character recognition products. These include a poor quality dot-matrix printout--one produced with a 9-pin printer and bad ribbon; a letter-quality printout; a laser-printed sheet with different sized serif and sans serif fonts, ranging from six to fourteen- point in size; a fax; a flyer from Egghead Software; and a page from my bank statement. I scanned each of these pages with each machine. I used default settings to start with and changed things only if the results were bad. So, unless otherwise indicated, brightness, contrast, and print style settings are at their default values for all tests. None of the machines was able to read the low-quality dot- matrix print reliably. By adjusting the brightness setting of the Reading Edge, I got a good reading with only a few mistakes on a single page. By changing the machine to the Dot Matrix setting and putting the brightness setting at its default, I got a very good reading with only a mistake or two. An Open Book did not do well at the default settings but improved dramatically when changed to its Dot Matrix setting. There were a few mistakes--a few more than the Reading Edge--but I could follow the text. I was never able to get reliable reading quality from either the Rainbow or ReadMan Pronounce with this page. Both the Reading Edge and An Open Book read the letter- quality document perfectly. The ReadMan made three or four mistakes, and the Rainbow made even more. Adjusting the contrast did not help either piece of equipment. The next page scanned had a variety of type sizes and faces on it. None of the machines was able to read the six-point Roman or sans serif typefaces well, although An Open Book did the best by a fair margin. Things improved slightly with the eight-point size with all the machines, although everything except An Open Book made a substantial number of mistakes, to the point where the train of thought couldn't be followed. An Open Book did quite well with the eight-point sans serif type, making very few mistakes. In general, all the machines did better with smaller sizes of the Sans Serif type than with the smaller size Roman type. The Reading Edge and the ReadMan did not read cleanly with the Roman type until the twelve-point size was reached. It did well starting with ten-point sans serif type. An Open Book did very well with the ten-point and above in both styles. The Rainbow did not do well until the twelve-point size was reached. The Reading Edge and An Open Book both read the Egghead flyer pretty well, with only a few mistakes. This page used a complex layout with three columns and a number of graphics elements. It also used a variety of type styles and sizes in different colors. It was easy to follow, and most of the mistakes were at the top. Neither the Rainbow nor the ReadMan Pronounce read the flyer satisfactorily. There were enough mistakes that it was difficult to follow the text. I next scanned a Fax page, the standard slick thermal printed Fax sheet--the kind that always curls up. All of the machines had trouble with our NFB letterhead. The Reading Edge did pretty well with a few mistakes. It did, however, think that some of the print was emphasized, that is, bold or underlined, when it wasn't. This was a problem that plagued the machine in all the tests. You can set the emphasis voice to be the same as the reading voice so that you do not know it is indicating emphasized print. However, this version of the software cannot be counted upon to convey such attribute information reliably. An Open Book read the Fax quite well and did somewhat better with the letterhead than the other machines. Both the Rainbow and ReadMan Pronounce read the Fax adequately but made a few mistakes. Finally I scanned a page from my bank statement. None of the machines was able to read it reliably. With numbers there is no margin for error. Of the group An Open Book did the best, but I still would not want to rely on the results for anything important. Strengths and Weaknesses While all of the reviewed machines are similar, there are differences in features and in operation, as well as in the accuracy with which they recognize printed pages. The Reading Edge is fairly simple to operate. It has a good manual, which is provided in print, in Braille, and on cassette. The machine is compact and could be moved if need be. There is a carrying bag, which has a handle, shoulder strap, and backpack straps for maximum carrying flexibility. The bookedge scanner will be a plus to many users. The nonvolatile memory is useful for storing documents, even when the machine is turned off. The speed of reading can be adjusted on the fly. The Braille keyboard is a unique feature. The unit can also be used as a speech synthesizer. Long pages can be scanned in two passes, and it is possible permanently to correct mispronounced words. On the negative side, the initial version of the machine is somewhat unstable. Some users have reported problems with the machine crashing or locking up. Xerox even warns users of some of these problems on a sheet included with the machine. I locked up the machine once in regular operation and several times when testing the Blazie disk drive option and am not quite sure how I did it each time. Also, frequently the Reading Edge incorrectly identifies print as emphasized. There is only one voice available for indicating such print, which includes bold, underlining, and italics. Some machines offer different voices for each of these attributes. At present The Reading Edge cannot automatically adjust its brightness or contrast setting. In the original release there was no way of permanently archiving scanned text short of transferring it to a computer by using the serial port. This process is awkward and inconvenient at best. Most, probably all, users will sooner or later fill up the machine's memory. As mentioned earlier, a software upgrade, which may be out by the time you read this review, offers support for the Blazie Engineering floppy disk drive, but at $495 the drive is a little pricey. An Open Book has a full set of features and options. Scanned text can be saved on the unit's hard disk or exported to floppy disk. Files can also be saved or exported using a large number of file types. Uncertain characters can be marked with an unusual punctuation mark, such as the ~, for which the user can later search in a word processor. The three menu levels may be a help to beginners. A number of beginners have reported to me that they found the machine easy to learn. The manual is written in a tutorial style. Tones and sound effects keep the user apprised about what the machine is doing. Finally, An Open book can be converted to a computer if necessary. All one has to do is to add a keyboard and screen review program. On the negative side, An Open Book is somewhat more complex in its operation than is the Reading Edge or Rainbow. It is more computer-like. It takes too many keystrokes to change some functions. I find myself hunting through menus for what I want. Further, when you change options, like reading speed or DEC-Talk voices, you do not hear the change until later when you make the choice and press the Select Key. The speech is somewhat flatter then on the Reading Edge, making it not as interesting to listen to. The machine just doesn't sound as good. The quick speech option is slow and choppy and of little use. The Robotron Rainbow is very simple and easy to use in its operation. It normally starts reading text quite quickly, more quickly than any other machine tested. Robotron says that it has dedicated processors for different functions, and this approach does seem to make a difference. The machine, at $4500, is somewhat less expensive than other offerings. The Rainbow and TR320 do not have optical character recognition accuracy on a par with the Reading Edge or An Open Book. This alone is probably enough reason to eliminate them from serious consideration until this is improved. At $3995, the TR320 has a price advantage, but with the poor voice and poor accuracy, I found it almost impossible to read and understand all but the cleanest laser-printed and type-written pages. The machines do not have the ability to adjust their brightness, or illumination, settings automatically. The ReadMan Pronounce has a few nice features. Its physical design is compact and well thought out. The on-line manual is easy to use and worthwhile. The joystick is an interesting approach to controlling the machine. On the negative side, the optical character recognition quality of the ReadMan is sub-standard. This along with the fact that it offers no price advantage eliminates it from serious consideration. In addition, others and I have found the company difficult to deal with. When I originally contacted the company, officials wanted 100 percent of the cost paid in advance. The National Federation of the Blind was unwilling to do this. One must question the viability of a company when it will not accept a purchase order from a reliable customer like the NFB. We ultimately purchased our machine from a ReadMan dealer, Jack Wood of ATR Computer. He has gone out of his way to provide us with good service. Other developments would indicate that the Schamex people are starting to learn and be more realistic about the adaptive technology market. However, they have been less than forthcoming about some aspects of the ReadMan in the past, such as disclosing what optical character recognition software it uses. Since I wrote the above sentences, Jack Wood has ceased being a dealer for Schamex Research because of his concerns with the poor optical character recognition abilities of the ReadMan. Conclusions Now comes the $64,000 question: which machine should you buy? Well, it depends. There are of course considerations that can't be quantified here, such as special price offers, the accessibility and quality of your local dealer, what your friends use and can help you with, etc. However, there are also some generalities which will be true for everyone. Because the recognition isn't nearly as good, it is hard to justify the purchase of a Rainbow, TR320, or ReadMan Pronounce. Unless all of your documents are of high quality, I would look at either the Reading Edge or An Open Book. Overall, I found the recognition accuracy of An Open Book to be slightly better than that of the Reading Edge. However, there are pages that the Reading Edge will read better. For most users the difference is probably hair-splitting and of little or no importance. The Reading Edge is simpler to operate. It is best suited for situations in which you just want to sit down and read things straight through. It starts reading quickly and sounds good. It would be the best choice for public settings, such as a library or university resource center. It is also better suited for reading books. An Open Book is better suited for those situations in which you want maximum accuracy or in which you read more low-quality documents. It is best suited for a user with more sophisticated needs, for someone who needs to save scanned materials for later perusal or for export to a disk for use on another computer. It is also ideal for someone who may need or want to convert the material to a computer file later on. The reading machine and PC-Based scanning markets are rapidly changing and very competitive. Both Kurzweil and Arkenstone are about to offer upgrades to their reading machines, upgrades that are likely to be out by the time you read this. Both have indicated improved features and better scanning accuracy. So, if you are not sure yet, keep watching or contact the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind for the latest information. Things are bound to change yet again. Where and How Much The Reading Edge is available from Kurzweil Computer Products, Xerox Imaging Systems, 9 Centennial Drive, Peabody, MA 01960; telephone (800) 343-0311 or (508) 977-2000. The price is $5495. A sheet feeder is available at an additional cost. The Arkenstone An Open Book comes in three models, the Standard Edition, the Special Edition, and the Deluxe Edition. They are priced at $4995, $5395, and $5995 respectively. The differences are processing speed and storage capacity. The Standard Edition is based on a 386SX processor and has a 40- megabyte hard disk while the Deluxe Edition is based on a 386 DX/33 processor with an 80-megabyte hard disk. The Special Edition, just released, has a 486 DX2/66 processor and a 120- megabyte hard disk. You will notice that the Special Edition is less expensive than the Deluxe Edition but offers more power and storage capacity by a substantial amount. This is because Arkenstone has received a donation of the 486 processors from Intel and was able to drop the price on this new model. There is absolutely no reason to purchase a Deluxe Edition at this time, and for $400 more the Special Edition makes a great deal more sense than the Standard Edition. While I have not seen one yet, it is my belief that it will offer substantially better performance than the Standard Edition, particularly in speed of text recognition. Arkenstone says that it should be two and a half times faster then the Deluxe Edition. Arkenstone can be reached at Arkenstone, Inc., 1390 Borregas Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94089; telephone (800) 444-4443 or (408) 752-2200. The ReadMan Pronounce is available from Schamex Research, 19443 Superior Street, Northridge, CA 91324; telephone (818) 772-6644. The cost of the ReadMan Pronounce is $5993. A twenty- page document feeder costs $492, an interactive remote diagnostics package is $349, and a heavy-duty rolling carrying case is priced at $379. For information on the Rainbow and other Robotron products, contact David Stayer, 2704 Beach Drive, Merrick, NY 11566; telephone (516) 868-8718. The cost of the TR320 is $3995, and the Rainbow is $4495.