Category: Garage Sale
I have a Kurtzweil Reading Edge, version 2.0 for sale. It works perfectly. It is missing the knob covers for speach and speed controls but they do still work. Make me an offer and remember to include $50 for shipping.
I know I sound like a very stupid person, but what does this machine do? I might buy it if I knew what it does.
And don't forget Craigslist or another online place.
And don't forget libraries, who may pay you a decent price for this.
FWIW, you can visit a hardware store and buy knobs to fit many machines - there are basically several sizes so it will depend, but I don't know which for this as I haven't had one.
To the last poster, my understanding is it was a future generation of the Xerox Kurzweil Personal reader - a OCR device from the early to mid 1990s which is self-voicing, may have no screen, but includes one ginormous flatbed scanner with a sloped edge so books fit it comfortably.
I used the Xerox Kurzweil Personal Reader in college, in those days that stuff was amazing and you literally waiting in long lines just to
Hope that answered your question, at least in general.use it.
This is correct, although the reading edge was a more compact device, and all-in-one, unlike the KPR which had a scanner, a CPU, and a keypad. the KRE has a keypad, but it magnetically clips in a compartment on the bottom of the unit, and they made a carrying case for it, too. I have one, but the power supply is toast on it. If I found a new power supply, I'd still be inclined to use it. It got me through college!
I'd love to have something like this but could never afford it. *sigh* You might want to put it up on EBay and also tip off the guys at Blind Bargains so that they can put it in their newsletter and on their page. One time, there were so many on there that they gave a link to the search for them on Ebay. But that's very rare. Truly a neat device you have there. I wonder what the resolution on it is, how it long it takes to scan and how clear it is? Can it save text files to a floppy or hook up to a computer via a serial or parallel port? Good luck.
There was an RS232 port on the back of the device, and the 3.0 firmware could read and write to the Blazie drive for the Braille N Speak. The biggest problem with the devices was that the computer inside wasn't very stable, so you'd be happily scanning pages, and suddenly, without warning, the device would lock up, and dump everything in its memory banks. All that hard work you just did would be effectively flushed down the toilet. That, I don't miss.
Wow I don't remember the old Personal Reader's doing that, but they had no fan and would get really hot.
The KRE had a very noisy fan, but I think in later versions of the firmware, it was disabled for some reason, or slowed down. It was pretty noisy at first.
Wow, guess I should check my posts more often. LOL
Thanks for the suggestions on other places to sell it. I've posted on CL and ebay but didn't have any luck. I like the idea of libraries.
Tif, I don't expect to get much for it at all. I think though, if I remember correctly, you live outside the US which would make shipping most likely prohibitively expensive.
To answer some other questions I saw, yes, it does have a paralell port for connecting to a computer. I never did that but it could be done. I didn't have too much problem with it locking and dumping my work although that's probably because most of the stuff I scanned was stuff I was reading right then. The fan is a bit noisy; you're right about that. The recognision was good but of course not anything like it is now. The voice was produced by the Dectalk synth so you've got good old Perfect Paul, Whispering Wiand of course my personal favorite, Rough Rita.
Perhaps, I should just quit being such a tight ass about it and donate the thing to a library, nursing home, etc. I just hate to give something away that my grandfather paid so much for but at the same time, I'm sure as long as it were going to someone who would use it, he'd much rather I do that than have it sitting in my bedroom floor as a toe stumper. lol Hmmm, tax credit for cheritable donation?
I was born and live in New Jersey. But I'm a Greek patriot, so I think that's what confused you. *smile*
I might have considered it if it didn't dump things, because it sounds like a device capable of handling large books. It can't recognise Greek, but at least I could use it with or without a computer. But what kinds of drivers and software does it use? Is it something like Laplink or would I need something specific to this scanner? I have heard of a package called Reading Edge, and I have the demo of it, but I'm not sure if it's a screenreader or designed to work with your scanner.
As far as sending things from the serial port into the computer, all you would need is some sort of terminal program. I haven't done it in Windows, so couldn't begin to tell you how. In fact, when I had one of these, I ran an Apple 2GS with Bex, and used to do it from there. Later, I had a Toshiba T1000 with Keynote Gold, so did it right in Keysoft. Either way, it's possible to do.
I miss Dectalk! It's still my favorite synth, and the new versions are a sad skeleton of what the old ones were. That's a classic case of technology getting worse over time, not better.
I was going to use DOS, so it's not a problem. But it's also good to know that this works with the Apple IIGS, as that offers me yet another option. My only problem there is that I probably wouldn't be able to read a disk from an Apple on an IBM-compatible.
Hi there. Tif, gotchya, New Jersey.
I'm sorry I can't answer your question about software other than to say that the scanner has its own built-in software. It is called the Reading Edge so would probably be compatible with the package you mentioned.
Just let me know if you're interested. Tomorrow I'll see what info I can dig up on the web based on the model number and share it here.