Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

PDAs for a Disabled Man?

Posted by Cliff on from the devices-to-make-life-easier dept.

Ed-Wars asks: "I work for a man who suffers from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and is mostly paralyzed, including a very limited ability to speak. He is looking for a portable device with a keyboard which will allow him to communicate with others while he is away from home. Wish-list: cheap, good sized screen with highly visible lettering, large and widely spaced buttons, ability to store/retrieve commonly used statements. It doesn't need to be high-powered or have any fancy graphics, again cheap is important. Text-to-speech could be useful, but is not necessary. Any suggestions you could give would be very helpful. Thanks!"

3 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. One of those old toshiba notebooks by rasteri · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Remember those old toshiba notebooks that were about the size of a VHS tape? They made them in late 486/early pentium flavours. Something like that, running a minimal linux or win95, with some kind of freeware/open source text-to-speech program (there's lots about). You could probably pick one up on ebay very cheaply, and of course linux would be free. It might be interesting finding a valid win95 license though...

  2. Palm Alternatives by ear1grey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was about to ask exactly this question having been investigating a PDA for somebody I know with Multiple Sclerosis who finds the de-facto Palm/PocketPC form-factor of stylus + graffiti too awkward and therefore too slow.

    The best combination of size and usability that we have found so far is an old Psion Series 7, often found on auction sites for a few hundred dollars or available in more modern form as the PsionTeklogix Netbook Pro . During a trial lasting several hours (to ensure there was no pressure to perform or make decisions), we found the keyboard was comfortably sized and usable (even a for very tall man with large hands and restricted mobility).

    The newer Netbook Pro is Windows CE based and this may be preferable if the user is already with the Windows user interface, it certainly is in our case.

    There are probably several other PDA's of similar size and form and we'd be interested to hear any suggestions.

    --
    boakes.org
  3. This should work rather well! by `Sean · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Right up your alley...

    --
    PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad