Instructions for embossing to
Enabling Technologies Thomas, ET, and Juliet embossers
This page has instructions for using Enabling Technologies Thomas, ET, Juliet Classic, Juliet Pro, and Juliet Pro 60 braille embossers with MacintoshOS X and Linux using TurboBraille.
Hardware needed
- USB to Serial interface, I used a Belkin unit but it also works with a Keyspan unit as well which comes with Mac software.
- A null modem cable or a serial cable with a null modem adapter. The cable should have a 9 pin serial female on one end and 25 pin female end or a gender changer as the Juliet Brailler has, for some reason, a 25 pin male connector
Configuring the embosser
Put the Juliet brailler into serial mode with this command set:
OL Take the embosser off-line
0.2E Enter menu 2
8.1E Set the embosser to hardware handshaking
[START OF OPTIONAL SETTINGS]
14.44E Set the embosser to 44 cells wide, if you are using standard braille paper.
15.3E Set the embosser's left margin to 3/10 of an inch enough for a three ring binder punch.
30.3E Set the top of form to 3/10 of an inch from the top of the page.
[END OF OPTIONAL SETTINGS]
1.1E Exit menu and reset the embosser
Configuring the the Mac
Now you need to know the device to send the braille to. This device is in the /dev directory from the shell do the following command:
ls /dev
Which will list all the devices your looking for something like tty.USB_Serial for the Belkin USB Serial interface or a similar string starting with tty.
Embossing
Connect all the cable and then issue the following command
tbrl filename.txt > /dev/tty.USB_Serial
(Replace tty.USB_Serial with what ever your USB serial
device is named.)
The brailler should start up and emboss the file. When it finishes take the embosser offline (OL) and press the form feed button (FF). The embosser may emboss up to a page more and then eject the last page.
In theory should work with any brailler with a serial interface, which is most embossers.
If you would like to contact the author please email Gregory Kearney