deskthority

Ever seen a keyboard for blind people? No? Me too....till I got this badass keyboard built by a german company with the (rather funny) name Baum Products GmbH. Even if the keyboard was built around 1994 this company still exists and selling lots of great stuff for blind or visually handicapped people. But nowadays they seem to concentrate more on the mobile Braille-stuff than on huge all-in-one solutions like this keyboard. Funny enough this keyboard has his name even because of all the integrated stuff and so it was promoted. INKA stands for INtegrated Keyboard Access and at this time it seemed to be superior about their today productline because you didnt had to handle with lots of cards, units or connections etc.



In front of the keyboard it has a 40-line Braille row with an integrated OSP (optical sensor pointer=which should act like a mice).
Left and right of it there each three small buttons which are called "display buttons" and are used for window and cursor control.
Right of it there are another four trigger buttons which are the so called "INKA-buttons" which are used for system functions.
Outer left and outer right of the whole keyboard are another two vertical OSP rows with each 27 optical sensors and which allow you to find out about current display structure or just "scrolling" vertically the braille row in the front.
Also the status "led's" are not missing. These are the three notches above the numpad. However as LED's obviously dont work for blind people, these are three metal sticks who got pushed up by a magnet to signal. (num lock, caps lock, scroll lock)
On the back it has connections for a separate power supply, an "ethernet look like" (RJ45?) connection for the keyboard cable and a serial connection (COM1/COM2) which also can be used for connection to the pc.



dat logo! and now look at our stickers.



Some closeup.



Mx clears and spacebar is mx grey.



Caps are cherry doubleshots white on black. Typically for blind-stuff they have these nipples on certain keys. And these are actually little rounded metal bolts which are pushed through the cap. (yes, these were times where things were done properly )



pcb or engine?



the rear.

Nice keyboard.

I watched this keyboard two times on ebay and always forgot to bid, I'm very happy it went to someone in the community!

Are the single dots of the braille row changing dependent on cortex?

Yes, saw it also two times. First time he just took it off and I already thought someone talked it him off. Was quite happy when it came up again.

Not sure what you mean with cortex, but yes, these dots are changing depending what letter it shows.

obviously cortex = context

I thought I had enough weird stuff and didn't bother to bid, not even dreaming it could have Cherry switches.
That's a nice catch!

Must go on record for one of the best Cherry finds!

BimboBB wrote: Not sure what you mean with cortex, but yes, these dots are changing depending what letter it shows.

That was a typo I meant context

⠠⠊ ⠝⠑⠫ ⠕⠝⠑ ⠷ ⠮⠎⠑
I need one of these !

Very interesting. Though I have to admit if I would have gotten it I would have stolen the white on black DE set as I have been looking for one, put on some lasered caps and donated it to a blind charity. I wonder why they didn't just go with blank keys? Surely lovely doubleshots were lost on the target user group...

Well, there's 'blind' and 'legally blind' ?

Also, when did the first laser-engraved key-caps appear on a keyboard ??

For Cherry? I think lasered PBT appears around 1992 when they stopped dyesub option. POM didnt come until later in mid/late 90's maybe?

Does anyone have any other information about this board? I think it's really cool and am curious about the technology and concept behind it.

Rayndalf wrote: 07 May 2021, 04:15 Does anyone have any other information about this board? I think it's really cool and am curious about the technology and concept behind it.

I have another model of a Braille keyboard (with Cherry clear switches and doubleshot white on black keycaps).
Not sure what kind of information you are looking for.
By the way, anybody wanting to trade it for an idiot-proof photo equipment?
. .

By the way,
https://www.ebay.de/itm/184793898517

kbdfr wrote: 07 May 2021, 08:22

Rayndalf wrote: 07 May 2021, 04:15 Does anyone have any other information about this board? I think it's really cool and am curious about the technology and concept behind it.

I have another model of a Braille keyboard (with Cherry clear switches and doubleshot white on black keycaps).
Not sure what kind of information you are looking for.
By the way, anybody wanting to trade it for an idiot-proof photo equipment?

That's really neat. So there are at least 3 different boards based on the G80-3000 that have a braille "bar" in the front.

And that bar displays lines of text? I guess more robust screen readers rendered it somewhat obsolete, but modern implementations exist. Not sure if they using chording now or just expect you to use them with a standard keyboard.

I can't believe people would consider scrapping one for caps, even 8 years ago. It's so well made and overly complicated, but at it's core also a standard fullsize. That one on ebay is even more monumental and a bit out of my price range, but I'd love to have one some day. I think old accessiblity gear is really interesting, it's clearly the product of careful research and not just some guys in marketing.