While I have been working on this edition, I have been thinking about the technology I have used through my life so far, and the progress that has been made in a relatively short timeframe!
1988 In my first classroom we had a BBC computer with a black screen with white letters operated by keyboard only. It would be a very special treat to be allowed to write a story on the computer! We could also play games which were loaded on from 8 inch floppy disks (which were actually floppy!). My favourite game was ‘Granny’s Garden’ where you had to solve logic puzzles to complete the adventures.
1990 Sometimes my father would take me and my brother and sister to his office after work hours and we had great fun sending messages to each other on the two computers – this was a very early form of internal emailing! My father also remembers the time when the office computer memory was upgraded to 2 gigabytes which arrived on a flatbed lorry!! The equivalent memory now fits on a USB drive a small as my thumb nail!
1991 At home we had a children’s educational ‘computer’ with games you inserted on little cards. We also had a Speak & Spell (famously used in the film E.T) and Speak & Maths. All these had an automated man’s voice and I seriously imagined that he went back home to his family when I had finished playing!
1992 One morning my teacher was very excited to show us all the brand new PC with Windows 3.1 and she demonstrated to us how you could use something called a ‘mouse’ to make the arrow move around the screen, and even use it to draw pictures in a programme called Paintbrush.
1994 When my sister’s word processing laptop was not sophisticated enough for GCSE coursework, we bought our first Windows 3.1 PC for home use and she used a home graphics software package called Arts & Letters Draw to create a theatre programme. Soon I was using the PC for some of my homework too, as I was starting to find handwriting more tiring. My favourite programmes from this time were Paintbrush and Creative Writer as well as a DOS run programme called My Own Stories where you could make pictures with backgrounds, people and other items provided in the galleries then add your own text!
1998 When I was in year 9, the whole school went to the hall for a special assembly where we were shown “The Internet”. It was amazing! On the big screen we were shown the Yahoo search engine where you could type in something you wanted to find out, and a whole list of relevant websites appeared on the screen! I was very excited about this, so when we received a free disk in the post with a leaflet about a free AOL trial, I was disappointed to discover that I couldn’t go on the internet at home without connecting our PC to a phone line. Later that year we decided to get ‘The Internet’. It was very exciting, but we had to remember to disconnect when we had finished as every minute cost money on dial-up! One evening a policeman came to our door having received a call from us. We were rather confused until we realised our dial-up number contained 999!!
1999 While I was working for my GCSEs I was provided with a mini word processor but the screen only showed 2 lines of text so I didn’t get on very well with that! I preferred to type my work on a PC at school or home and managed to achieve a typing speed of 15 words per minute just using my right hand!
I was awarded with a scholarship grant from the University of Sussex to support my learning. With this money I was able to buy a bright blue Apple iBook laptop which looked very modern and cool, but in reality I didn’t get on very well with it as the keyboard was set behind the touchpad; when I typed my arm would move the cursor into a different position on the screen!
2000 When I went to Chichester College to do French and German A levels, one of the key elements was listening in the language lab. I very quickly discovered that I couldn’t operate the tape players which were on benches round the room. After an assessment of my needs I was provided with a Walkman with remote control functions in the headphone cable. I was then able to replay the cassettes at the same speed as everyone else.
2002 Before I started at University I had another technology assessment and I was provided with a Dell Latitude laptop which I used throughout my three years and a minidisk recorder to use in lectures. I tried Dragon Dictate but I found it slow as it involved teaching it my voice, then when my laptop had to be cleared after a virus, I hadn’t got the energy to start again! I found typing easier using an on screen keyboard called Wivik which stored my words, I also had support from staff who would type while I dictated. I used the minidisk recorder a couple of times but as I had a notetaker in lectures, I stopped using it. I later used a digital voice recorder when I was interviewing people for my dissertation. I was told I should have a page turner – which arrived in the most enormous box and required setting up from flat pack. It had an operating switch to a pipe which sucked the page up, then a little arm would flip the page over. It was such a hassle to set up with different sizes of books that I again found it was easier to be read to or have my support staff to turn pages, particularly as I often wanted to skip back to the index!
2005 Since leaving university I have had a couple of upgrades to my home PC and the best advice I would give anybody (with a disability or not) is to have the largest screen possible (mine is 23”) and a good set of speakers (not the inbuilt ones). I continue to use the Wivik keyboard as well as the Windows 7 version with my Logitech Trackman Marble mouse. I use Kindle for PC to read books and can communicate freely with all my friends and family on Skype, Facebook and email. I now do all my shopping online too! I also use my iPhone for texting and reading.
2015 I am looking forward to seeing how the inventions of the future will allow me and other disabled people to be even more independent!
Lizzie Baily 2014
1988 In my first classroom we had a BBC computer with a black screen with white letters operated by keyboard only. It would be a very special treat to be allowed to write a story on the computer! We could also play games which were loaded on from 8 inch floppy disks (which were actually floppy!). My favourite game was ‘Granny’s Garden’ where you had to solve logic puzzles to complete the adventures.
1990 Sometimes my father would take me and my brother and sister to his office after work hours and we had great fun sending messages to each other on the two computers – this was a very early form of internal emailing! My father also remembers the time when the office computer memory was upgraded to 2 gigabytes which arrived on a flatbed lorry!! The equivalent memory now fits on a USB drive a small as my thumb nail!
1991 At home we had a children’s educational ‘computer’ with games you inserted on little cards. We also had a Speak & Spell (famously used in the film E.T) and Speak & Maths. All these had an automated man’s voice and I seriously imagined that he went back home to his family when I had finished playing!
1992 One morning my teacher was very excited to show us all the brand new PC with Windows 3.1 and she demonstrated to us how you could use something called a ‘mouse’ to make the arrow move around the screen, and even use it to draw pictures in a programme called Paintbrush.
1994 When my sister’s word processing laptop was not sophisticated enough for GCSE coursework, we bought our first Windows 3.1 PC for home use and she used a home graphics software package called Arts & Letters Draw to create a theatre programme. Soon I was using the PC for some of my homework too, as I was starting to find handwriting more tiring. My favourite programmes from this time were Paintbrush and Creative Writer as well as a DOS run programme called My Own Stories where you could make pictures with backgrounds, people and other items provided in the galleries then add your own text!
1998 When I was in year 9, the whole school went to the hall for a special assembly where we were shown “The Internet”. It was amazing! On the big screen we were shown the Yahoo search engine where you could type in something you wanted to find out, and a whole list of relevant websites appeared on the screen! I was very excited about this, so when we received a free disk in the post with a leaflet about a free AOL trial, I was disappointed to discover that I couldn’t go on the internet at home without connecting our PC to a phone line. Later that year we decided to get ‘The Internet’. It was very exciting, but we had to remember to disconnect when we had finished as every minute cost money on dial-up! One evening a policeman came to our door having received a call from us. We were rather confused until we realised our dial-up number contained 999!!
1999 While I was working for my GCSEs I was provided with a mini word processor but the screen only showed 2 lines of text so I didn’t get on very well with that! I preferred to type my work on a PC at school or home and managed to achieve a typing speed of 15 words per minute just using my right hand!
I was awarded with a scholarship grant from the University of Sussex to support my learning. With this money I was able to buy a bright blue Apple iBook laptop which looked very modern and cool, but in reality I didn’t get on very well with it as the keyboard was set behind the touchpad; when I typed my arm would move the cursor into a different position on the screen!
2000 When I went to Chichester College to do French and German A levels, one of the key elements was listening in the language lab. I very quickly discovered that I couldn’t operate the tape players which were on benches round the room. After an assessment of my needs I was provided with a Walkman with remote control functions in the headphone cable. I was then able to replay the cassettes at the same speed as everyone else.
2002 Before I started at University I had another technology assessment and I was provided with a Dell Latitude laptop which I used throughout my three years and a minidisk recorder to use in lectures. I tried Dragon Dictate but I found it slow as it involved teaching it my voice, then when my laptop had to be cleared after a virus, I hadn’t got the energy to start again! I found typing easier using an on screen keyboard called Wivik which stored my words, I also had support from staff who would type while I dictated. I used the minidisk recorder a couple of times but as I had a notetaker in lectures, I stopped using it. I later used a digital voice recorder when I was interviewing people for my dissertation. I was told I should have a page turner – which arrived in the most enormous box and required setting up from flat pack. It had an operating switch to a pipe which sucked the page up, then a little arm would flip the page over. It was such a hassle to set up with different sizes of books that I again found it was easier to be read to or have my support staff to turn pages, particularly as I often wanted to skip back to the index!
2005 Since leaving university I have had a couple of upgrades to my home PC and the best advice I would give anybody (with a disability or not) is to have the largest screen possible (mine is 23”) and a good set of speakers (not the inbuilt ones). I continue to use the Wivik keyboard as well as the Windows 7 version with my Logitech Trackman Marble mouse. I use Kindle for PC to read books and can communicate freely with all my friends and family on Skype, Facebook and email. I now do all my shopping online too! I also use my iPhone for texting and reading.
2015 I am looking forward to seeing how the inventions of the future will allow me and other disabled people to be even more independent!
Lizzie Baily 2014
