| Artist |
Xerox Imaging Systems |
| Credit line |
Museum Purchase, 2009.9. |
| Date |
1992 |
| Description |
Black plastic chassis; rests on two rubber feet and a black enameled steel wire foot; lid hinged in back, opens to reveal glass scanning surface; angled from has yellow/black label in print/braille, "THE READING EDGE/A KURZWEIL READER"; five large fins in middle of front panel, three smaller ridges on right side; 5.5x4.1.25" keyboard connects to scanner with spural cord on right, stores when not in use in cubby at lower right of unit, black plastic keyboard chassis with labeled yellow and gray oplastic keys; yellow plastic volume and speech speed knobs on right of unit; memory card in slot in lower right; black power cord and jack on left of unit; serial port and cooling fan grill on reverse; label on reverse, "Manufactured for Xerox Imaging Systems Peabody, MA/Model 7315-60 Made in Mexico/Serial No. 201894". |
| Dimensions |
H-7.5 W-21 D-16 inches |
| Dimension notes |
Overall |
| Year Range from |
1992 |
| Year range to |
1996 |
| Made |
Xerox Imaging Systems |
| Material |
Plastic, glass, rubber, steel |
| Object ID |
2009.9.1 |
| Object Name |
Reader, Text-to-Speech |
| Place of Origin |
Mexico; Peabody, MA |
| People |
Kurzweil, Raymond |
| Provenance/History |
The Kurzweil Reading Edge was an optical character recognition scanner and speech synthesizer. It worked like a photocopy machine, but instead of printing a copy of a page, the Reading Edge read the page out loud. Raymond Kurzweil, a researcher interested in pattern recognition and artificial intelligence, founded Kurzweil Computer Products in 1974 to develop reading machines for people with vision loss. Their first desktop models came out in 1978 at a cost of $19,400, a price affordable only for libraries and institutions. Xerox bought the company in 1980, renaming it Xerox Imaging Systems. Under that name, Kurzweil developed several different generations of his original machine. The Reading Edge, introduced in 1992, was the first stand-alone and "almost portable" version. At less than $6,000, it was the first reader that might be possibly affordable for the average blind consumer.
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| Search Terms |
Xerox Imaging Systems
Kurzweil Educational Systems
Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. |
| Subjects |
Blind
Electronic Aids for the Blind and Visually impaired
Reading devices |
| Title |
The Reading Edge reading machine |
|
