Andabatae – the cause of the disabled in technology

The blog is named Andabatae, and in that name there are multiple analogies. Andabatae are Roman gladiators who fought blindfolded. Solving problems in networks is often the same, as there are limited or insuffient environmental stimuli. However, there is another analogy. In 1988/9 I wrote a program named Andabatae in 8086/8 assembler. It was for blind computer users, worked as a DOS TSR, and interacted with a braille keyboard. It could read the screen, perform file transfer functions and other various functions. I moved onto installing networks and later into other infrastructure disciplines and pretty much put the cause of disabled people in technology on the backburner. I have encountered nearly no disabled people working in the field of network or infrastructure technology. I seriously beleive there are disciplines in these areas of technology in which they would perform well. However, I do not think that vendors provide sufficient innovation in technology to assist these careers. As an example, the default Windows operating system is dismal in its support for disabled people. Vendors, both hardware and software, would not be able to provide a positive answer to the question: “How did you improve you product today for the disabled?” It is my firm belief that innovations that benefit disabled people, will also benefit normal users, making their experience of using a product easier. What else is a podcast other than a audio rendition of a news article, or another mechanism to publish to visually impaired people? What highlighted the cause of disabled people to me again was the case of [url=http://thinkingproblemmanagement.blogspot.com/2008/01/bulldust-olympic-hypocrisy.html]Oscar Pistorius[/url]. The underling reason why it matters to me is the same as why I wrote that program back in 1988. I am [url=http://thinkingproblemmanagement.blogspot.com/2007/11/coloboma-problem.html]one of them[/url] as well. Thus the other analogy of Andabatae is fighting for the cause of the disabled in technology.