Activities of Speech and Rehabilitation Techniques Group

BraiLab Talking Computers in Hungarian Education

In 1985 the emergence of the first talking computer, the BraiLab, was a great breakthrough. Although the first BraiLab's BASIC and ASSEMBLY environment presented in the ROM could not provide real professional use, it did play an important role in widening the popularity of informatics among the pupils of the Budapest Primary School for the Blind. Due it favorable price production and sales soared. About 400 BASIC BraiLabs were in use as the computer of choice for the blind.

The text-to-speech program and BraiLab computers were developed at the KFKI Institute for Measurement and Computing Techniques. The next member of talking computer family to be developed was the BraiLab Plus.

BraiLab Plus

The BraiLab Plus talking Wordstar compatible word processor has made it ideal for educational use as well as for rehabilitation purposes. Since 1987 about 60 computers with BraiLab Plus have been in use by blind students and workers in Hungary. The talking CP/M compatible operating system has been useful in the support of higher educational programs. A German speaking version of BraiLab Plus is also available.

The diplomas Bsc. and Msc. are awarded annually to 60-110 undergraduate and 20-40 graduate students of the science program at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Prof László Varga's computer department at the University is a leader in the education of disabled students. Experience has shown that the visually impaired do very well in the field of computers.

BraiLab PC

As a result of the cooperation of Eötvös Loránd University and the KFKI Institute for Measurement and Computing Techniques the BraiLab PC was born in 1991. Using the latest speech synthesis technology the BraiLab PC was developed as a small portable adapter for the IBM PC and compatible computers. Its software has an intelligent built-in screen reader program which is integrated with the text-to-speech program.

BraiLab PC and BraiLab Plus too, were developed specifically for blind users! Presently about 250 BraiLab PC adapters are being used in Hungary. Due to its very low price every student has his or her own talking BraiLab PC adapter. Last years blind students and computer specialists received about 100 IBM PC compatible personal computers from the Hungarian government.

This page is maintained by Laszlo Buday.