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Chess for the blind and disabled

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DaveNave

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Hi,

My brother, Chris, is physically disabled in his upper body and is blind and deaf at the same time, but he is certainly not dumb. He recently discovered how to play chess and really loves it, but it has proven difficult for him to find someone who is willing to play with him on a real board. That is why I am researching the possibility to use an interface such as TandemMaster (TandemMaster-Morse-2-USB Interface) or similar to build a device so that he can play versus a computer software.

There are several chess softwares on the market where it is possible to enter a move (e.g. a1a2, corresponding to a movement from a1 to a2) from the keyboard and then press enter. As I understand it, this would be possible to do using TandemMaster. The issue is how he can recieve the moves back. The chess softwares that are available generate a soundbyte with the move that it has played e.g. it might say "King from a1 to a2. But because Chris is deaf he needs to receive his moves in some other way.

My thought is to change the speaking voice to morse code like soundbytes by altering the sound files and then instead of using a loud speaker I will utilise a vibrator that will pick up on the distinct morse code sound. More specifically, "King from a1 to a2" is actually King.wmv+from.wmv+a1.wmv+to.wmv+a2.wmv. By changing the person speaking to biiiiping sounds they could be translated into vibrator signals.

What do you think about this, is it plausible? Do you know of any better solution in conjunction with a software like TandemMaster?

Thank you for you help!

David
 
It sounds plausible to do what you suggest with the TandemMaster.

Does your brother read Braille?
 
Yes my brother reads Braille. Do you have an idea of how it can be used?

The problem I have is that I have no prior knowledge about electronics which means I may need some help.

Is it really as simple as I think: I change the voice files to distinct long and short 'biiips' and then join the vibrator to the audio cable instead of the actual speaker?
 
the program,s bundle with the sounds in memory. if you can replace it with
say for rook to a1, replace it with a sound code, like morse code beeps. so you can play it the vibrator.

if need of any electronics please reply.

AND YOUR BROTHER IS AWESOME , i can't stop failing with buddies !! :)
 
If the program has separate replies (files) for each response then your method will work. I suspect the replies will be embedded in the program and so not changeable. However, it is normal to have a resource file that contains the language part and so it may still be possible.

Mike.
 
If the program has separate replies (files) for each response then your method will work. I suspect the replies will be embedded in the program and so not changeable. However, it is normal to have a resource file that contains the language part and so it may still be possible.

Mike.

Thank you all. Yes the software has a seperate folder with sound files such as 1.wmv, 2.wmv, 3, 4 etc for the rank and files and King.wmv, Queen.wmv and so on for the pieces.

Can I join any vibrator I find to the audio cable. I suppose the Voltage in the audio cable has to be within the range of what the vibrator can handle?
 
I mentioned Braille because they have Braille readers that connect to a computer such as **broken link removed**. Perhaps the chess moves could be output through that. But they likely are not cheap.
 
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