Hardware

The hardware being used to develop the program isn't very snazzy, but it's definitely oriented more toward sound than video. It all forms a tidy little auiPile of equipment that's easy to find in the dark. It's all available from online stores, and you'll most likely need a few audio cables and adaptors.

A regular Macintosh system (iMac, MacBook, Mac Pro, etc.) will work too, but they pay way too much attention to their pictures.

Aside from the computer having to be an Intel Macintosh and the Operating System having to be OS X Leopard, the following are just suggestions. This is a description of the hardware I'm using in the development system, but many other components will work as well, some probably better.

• 
  A Macintosh Mini computer ~$600

  This is a good machine for this job because it has a snappy processor, a FireWire port, a lot of USB ports — and no mouse, keyboard, or monitor. This means you can get a legible keyboard and a great big monitor for a visually impaired user, or a couple real throwaways for a blind user. You can also get a mouse with a big scroll wheel that's easy to find by feel. And for a Mac, it's cheap.

  If you want to use a Mac you've already got or want to use one from eBay or craigslist, be sure it's one with an Intel processor and is running Leopard. AUI has been seen running on a MacBook, a MacBook Air, a Mac Pro, and several Minis.

• 
  A Logitech wired USB optical mouse ~$20 (I've had it forever, so I'm not sure about the price)

  Not much to say. It works; it's cheap; and since it's the mouse in the development system, you can be sure that if it didn't act quite right, I'd fix it right away.

  

  Some wireless BlueTooth mice are also known to work (the $45 Logitech is great; also nicely sized for small hands). They really free up the user to move around — with no monitor to watch, there's really no reason the user has to be anywhere near the system.

  The Apple MightyMouse (BlueTooth or wired) is OK, but the scroll wheel is very small and more difficult to use, and I've had the left/right button function not work too well.


• A Tapco Link.USB "sound card" ~$145

  The Mini's sound output is there, but it's not very good (it has "skritchy" noises in it whenever there's disk activity). The Tapco is an external box that uses a cable to plug into one of the Mini's USB ports. OS X is very happy to work with it, and it makes quite good audio for speakers or headphones. It has a pair of high quality microphone preamps as well (it's on the AUI todo list to make it into a radio station / DJ control board). It's worth the trouble and expense.


• A Furman SP-20AB 20 watt per channel stereo amplifier ~$250

  Yeah, it's expensive. But it fits so nicely into the auiPile! It was designed as a headphone amplifier for recording studios, but it also works with speakers, so it's the perfect amplifier in this application.


• A pair of JBL Control 1Xtreme speakers ~$75 for the pair

  These are pretty decent speakers. They don't have much bass, but the sound is very clean and clear, especially listening to them close up. And they're tiny: about 9" tall, 6" wide, and 6" deep. They also don't have a the phony sound that so many 'computer speakers' do.

  If you're interested in playing video games on the computer, spend your $$ on a great monitor and video card so you can see things. If you want to listen to it, get a decent amp and set of speakers.


• A Newer Technologies MiniStac3 external disk ~$160

  The only thing this disk is used for is Leopard's new backup program, Time Machine — the eighth wonder of the world. I've been fighting with backups for years. Not anymore :-)

  Backups are crucial if you want a system that works reliably and you don't want to lose data. Computer systems are a collection of machines, and eventually every machine is going to break. For absolute sure. Leopard's approach is so simple to use, and disk drives are so inexpensive these days, that there's no excuse anymore.

  It'll take a sighted person to set up Time Machine and get it going, but after that, there's nothing to do until something needs to be restored.


• A Keys-U-See keyboard ~$40

  This is a huge improvement over the keyboards from a design department full of 25 year old kids — you know, the ones who can actually read the key labels on those gorgeous Macintosh keyboards. These keys are bright yellow, and almost the entire keycap is covered with a label in dark black. I don't qualify (yet) as VI, but I noticed right away that my huntNpeck typing is much faster and more accurate when I can see what the keys are for.

• A monitor ~ $JustAboutAnything

  The Mac seems to need to have a monitor. AUI doesn't care much, and a totally blind user certainly doesn't. Anything that will make the Mac happy will be fine. (It's known to be possible to trick the Mac into thinking there's a monitor, when there isn't, and the man who discovered this has been known to stay up very late to build things for AUI users...).

  For a visually impaired user, the bigger the better.

  I'm using a big 23" LCD, but I need to be sure the display part works right, even though the people I hope will get the most out of this program will never even know it's there.