Mission: Extremely Difficult - Elite for the Blind

imipak · Post by **imipak** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:50 pm

I've been asked for something that might very well be impossible to achieve. This goes a bit beyond even the crazier projects I've been involved with.

Basically, the challenge I've been given is this: to determine if it is possible to develop an add-on for Oolite that would allow someone who is blind to be able to play effectively.

This requires two distinct things. Firstly, when on a space station (or any other dockable platform), all text would need to be spoken. Not a major problem. That's what Festival is for. But that's the trivial part.

The hard part is the space flight itself. Here, the scanner must not only generate a visual indication of where everything is, it must also generate an audible indication.

A "ping" sound would be a possibility, where the stereo position gives you the angle along the X/Y plane; the pitch of the sound gives you the angle along the Y/Z plane; and finally the volume gives you the distance.

Each target would generate one ping, and it would be up to the player to figure out which ping related to which target. Vastly more complex than the existing method, but derived from games that already exist for the visually impaired. What has worked will presumably continue working. A better method can always be figured out later.

I'm not saying it's the best way to do things, and it may well be that there's a better expansion module that already exists for Oolite that I'm not aware of. (If so, then as far as I'm concerned, the problem is solved in negative time.)

Thoughts/suggestions/recommendations for meds would be helpful.

Cmdr. Maegil · Post by **Cmdr. Maegil** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 11:25 pm

I'd like to see someone hit an Asp a kilometer away just on sounds, or handling a multiple opponent furball with pings and lasers blasting all over the place.
The only way I could imagine it would be if there was an auto-aim & lock-on function (as per modern HUDs' missile targetting), and even then...

Phrostbyte · Post by **Phrostbyte** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:32 am

I've got your answer right here on the tip of my tongue:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/25/the- ... he-future/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ongue.html
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002368.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1220632.stm
http://discovermagazine.com/2003/jun/fe ... :int=1&-C=
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=282145

In a nutshell, it's call the "Brain Port"; here's a link to a manufacturer/marketer's page:

http://www.wicab.com/index.html

It lets you "see" with your tongue, which feels this little probe you put in your mouth. Apparently, navy divers have no problem getting around in murky waters using only information they can "taste" with this device. It would let you play Oolite (or just about any other video game) without using your eyes, like this guy:

"Can you taste the difference between a SATA hard drive and an IDE hard drive?"

LOL, just a joke caption; this is what he has in his mouth, providing excellent spatial data through his tongue to his brain:

Does it come in mint-flavor?

BTW, wtf is up with this bb's url link codes?

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:27 am

The link system is [urk]something.com[/urk], where k is actually an l.

Interesting idea and possibly worthwhile when the Trubmes are sitting piled up in front of the veiwscreen.....

Captain Hesperus

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:25 am

Phrostbyte wrote:
BTW, wtf is up with this bb's url link codes?

I can at least answer this question. Nothing tf is up with them. They're BBCode, not HTML, that's all. So don't type in HTML.

There is this handy button-bar just above your typing window. One of the buttons says "URL". Just select the word(s) you want to link, click the button, and the BBCode-tags will appear around it. Now you add a "=", immediately followed by the URL you want to link to, into the opening tag. Like . Voilà! Clickable text appears in your post!

Or just type your URL in plain text, without any tags around it. Like http://www.aegidian.org/ . (Don't forget at least one SPACE to the following dot, or comma!).

*****

By the way: For the real nerds among us there is even the possibility to simply press the small [url=https://bb.oolite.space/faq.php]FAQ-button which is so handily positioned on top of every page of this board, next to "Search", "Memberlist" etc. It leads to the..., errm... FAQs, which answer minute little questions like "What is BBCode?".

Even freakier: You could click on the "BBCode is ON"-message on the bottom left of your typing area, and arrive directly at a page which explains every aspect of its syntax.

Dude, isn't it coooool what they can do these days with them freakin' computer machine thingamajigs!?

Phrostbyte · Post by **Phrostbyte** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:20 pm

Captain Hesperus wrote:
The link system is [urk]something.com[/urk], where k is actually an l.

Interesting idea and possibly worthwhile when the Trubmes are sitting piled up in front of the veiwscreen.....

Captain Hesperus

Sorry, it's been awhile, and when I first posted it using [urk]...[/urk] it didn't work for some reason (I blame myself?) I've ammended my previous post.

Also, you bring up an interesting question with Trumbles....I wonder what they would taste/feel like. Weird.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:02 pm

Phrostbyte wrote:
Sorry, it's been awhile, and when I first posted it using [urk]...[/urk] it didn't work for some reason (I blame myself?) I've ammended my previous post.

If you just type the links you don't need . Just type them, without any tags around, and they will work perfectly, as the boards seem to recognize URLs. (see my previous post for what you can really do with . (And you don't even need to replace the "l" with a "k" to make the tags visible. Just leave them empty.)