MathGroup Archive 1995

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Question from Blind User

  • To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
  • Subject: [mg1178] Question from Blind User
  • From: mentat at telerama.lm.com (Godshatter)
  • Date: Sat, 20 May 1995 04:53:31 -0400
  • Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA

     Just installed the DOS version of Mathematica - the very last copy 
available, so they told me - and have run up against a problem in the way 
it displays answers.  If you take the derivative of x^3, it gives the 
answer as:

        2
     3 x
 
     If I use a voice synthesyser to read the answer, it will come out as 
2 3x.  Using a braille display isn't much better, since I have to 
remember to look on more than one line for the answer.

     Is there any way to get the program to display answers in a more 
Fortran-like method? 

     3x^2

 I don't know how useful the program will be for me, if I have to look at 
multiple lines for the results.  It is feasible to read equations spaced 
out on paper, but except for some very early arithmetic books, braille 
math books write equations and expressions one symbol after another.  
Besides, refreshable braille devices can display only one line at a time, 
and reading answers that way would involve a lot of extra keystrokes over 
the course of just a few problems.

     I would be grateful for any help.  I would think that a program as 
powerful as Mathematica would allow for this kind of adjustment.  Since 
the manual is rather large, I have not read it all yet.  If the answer is 
in the documentation, just point me to it and I'll do the rest.

     Thanks in advance.

          Evan Reese
          mentat at telerama.lm.com

     "People are born with legs, not roots."
          R. Buckminster Fuller 


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