"Why don't you get a computer? I heard they can talk now," said one of my friends. Ann also said to me, "Why don't we get a computer for the family?" In conversations with my friend Freddie, he told me that he bought a computer from an online store for $1200.
That cost was overwhelming to me, but we bought one with a credit card and had it delivered. It was a big desktop, and the speed was an "8086." Ann followed the instructions to hook it all up, and there it sat on a desk that no one knew what to do with.
I started telling people that we now had a computer. My brother Bill had recently received one and had started to integrate it into his life, as he had made a career change. I learned that there was a program called "Jaws" that could make our computer talk aloud. I received the Jaws screen reader, which stands for "Job Access With Speech," to guide the computer to talk. However, in order for the computer to talk, there needed to be an additional piece of hardware added for the program Jaws to work.
I inquired over the phone about different resources for the best synthesizer to work on my computer.
Come to find out, I needed a "DECtalk." This device was just as big as the computer itself, but it cost $1000.
We could not afford that, especially after buying the computer. Then someone suggested that I contact a club that gives donations to the visually impaired for help to buy it and informed me how to go about it. I had a friend write a letter proposing what I wanted to do, and soon the invitation to the club was in the mail. I was one of two recipients that day. They paid the whole $1000 for me to buy the "DECtalk" that I needed for the computer.
Bill had a friend who was in the printing business and was very computer-literate. His name was Brian. Bill told him about me having a computer and the "DECtalk" to make it speak, and asked Brian to see if he could get it talking for me.
Brian called me up and asked if he could come over and help me hook it up. I said, "Sure, if you want to." Brian came over and even brought a pizza for the whole family. He hooked up the "DECtalk" and got it to the point of talking through the synthesizer.
I was so grateful to him and asked, "What do I owe you for doing this?" He said, "Nothing, this is my pleasure to be able to do this for you." Brian was yet another "angel" whom God had planned for me and placed into my path.
He left, and I was sitting at a desk in front of a computer and synthesizer. The only thing I could do was press the Enter key on the keyboard to hear the synthesizer say, "C colon backslash." Well, that gets old after pressing it about ten times.
I was sitting there thinking, "This is bigger than me." An actual tool that might give me some semblance of independence in my life of total blindness.
Growing up as I did, I only acquired a high school education, and I put extraordinarily little effort into it, getting out as soon as I could.
This computer was long before the Windows program, so I needed to learn how to use the DOS structure to operate it. In addition to the technology, it was like learning for the first time for me.
Before our computer, I did learn the keyboard somewhat. I would play cassette tapes and type what I heard, but my nose was on the keys to know where to place my fingers. I had extraordinarily little vision at that point and went to total blindness shortly after that. I had no idea how to work on the computer at this time.
My brother Bill came over to see what Brian had accomplished. Bill followed me into the office, and I proudly showed him what the computer said when I pressed the Enter key. He was impressed.
He then sat down at our new computer and proceeded to press the keys. He was working on it for about 15 minutes, and then he was finally done. He instructed me to sit down at the computer, type my name on the keyboard, and then press the Enter key.
I placed my damaged eyes right down near the keyboard to find the d, a, n keys and pressed Enter. The speech synthesizer started talking rapidly. I did not understand it because I was not used to the voice yet, but it kept going on for about three minutes.
I found out later that he had made a simple batch file for DOS to read the whole screen of everything loaded on the computer. I sat there feeling dumbfounded, with my mouth hanging open. I then asked Bill the big question.
Keep in mind that he and I had always had sibling rivalry with each other. I asked him, "How did you do that?" He said, "Never mind, you don't need to know."
Bill will never know how much that answer helped me grow independently. Because then, I really started digging in, hard.
I had a cassette tape for the Jaws booklet that came with it, so I started listening to the tutorial on how to use it. We had a word processor and a printer installed on it. I also went into WordPerfect, and it seemed overwhelming.
Nevertheless, the inner voice kept pushing me to be as independent as possible. I was talking with Bill on the phone about computers, and he informed me that he had email. I was very curious about that, and I asked him how he acquired it.
He informed me, and then he took me down to the computer store in town that had the email server. I was able to start an email account with a company called Computer-Connection, even though no one knew if I could do email as a blind person.
Bill helped me get it configured with technical assistance over the phone after installing the 2400-baud modem to hook to the dial-in connection. I will never forget my first email, as it opened a "whole new world" for me.
It read a message from myself to me, and the subject was a test. I could not believe it. I could now communicate electronically outside my house if I had email addresses. It was an absolute miracle for me.
I started collecting email addresses to communicate with anyone I could. I began sharing jokes and funny stories with friends and family. I also learned how to browse the internet using a web browser called Netscape.
I learned how to turn the Jaws screen reader off and on, as Ann and the children became interested in using the computer. They learned it in a different way, since Jaws does not use a mouse. Ann and the kids started doing research and homework once we got the printer.
The Learning Curve with the Computer
This time, the "ten-year bondage" was the primary period in which I experienced the most personal growth in learning computer skills. I cannot help but feel that God may have designed it and allowed it to happen for me to gain this knowledge.
Many times, when Ann took the kids and left for the day, I would dig in and learn as much as I could. Then the Windows program became available, and the company that made Jaws announced "Jaws for Windows."
I upgraded to both, which meant another learning curve. By this time, I was a regular member of AA. I had heard others' stories and was now sharing my experience, strength, and hope.
In late 1993, after we moved the computer system to another room, I sat down and decided to share in a unique way. By then, we had an office program. I opened it and wrote my story to send to a magazine affiliated with the AA program.
I wrote my story called: "Acceptance is easy when you don't have a choice."
I found the address online and sent it in. About a month later, we received a response saying they approved my article and would publish it in the March 1994 issue.
The article needed drastic editing, but they did it. Being able to express myself in a healthy way was so rewarding. Though my blindness is not easy, and while I was constantly facing fears about the future, somehow God was working in my life.
I came to believe that God is in control of everything and is giving me the hope, strength, and endurance to live life His way, one day at a time.