My BLIND Life as a former Embedded Systems Developer of Digital Electronics

Hello World! When I became totally BLIND, 4+ years ago, my ongoing research into assistive & adaptive technologies forces me to reminisce my embedded systems developer lifestyle before I became BLIND! Often depressing, as well!

Since I became BLIND, other BLIND persons simply don’t understand how painful blindness is to me, even when I explain in detail. I still remember visiting my local blind organization after I became BLIND, and being asked if I require retraining on how to use a computer… and I began to CRY! The rehabilitation specialist simply could not understand!

Imagine, when I became totally BLIND, I successfully completed 35 wonderful years as an independent developer of computing & electronics technologies which includes 30 wonderful years as an independent foreign language speech synthesis systems developer and eight wonderful years as an independent developer of embedded systems (electronics), plus 20 wonderful years as an independent GNU/Linux developer, which includes barely four years developing with embedded GNU/Linux via Raspberry Pi & BeagleBone Black. — Now, I can no longer do any of those wonderful projects! Never again!

Nowadays, whenever I research assistive & adaptive technologies for BLIND persons, such as myself, I quickly imagine which digital microcontroller is being used, as well as, what the circuit boards with surface-mount technology (SMT) looks like. Usually, if the gadget uses a secure digital (SD) card, I can probably guess how the entire gadget was built from the ground-up. When it comes to speech processing, I can easily guess what technology is being used, with very high precision. Not bad for a BLIND, old man, right?

When it came to my development of embedded electronics, I still remember my Microchip PICkit 2, Atmel AVRISP MKII & Atmel AVR Dragon microcontroller “flashers”, though Microchip Corporation purchased Atmel Corporation shortly after I lost my eyesight. I once developed for a Zilog Z8 microcontroller development board, and a board from STmicrosystems, but sold them before I became BLIND. I also have a 32-bit embedded ARM microcontroller development board, that’s still in my cabinet, but I cannot recall the name right now; recently, ARM embedded has been making the tech news!

Now that I’m totally BLIND, whenever I need a specific assistive or adaptive technology to compensate/facilitate my blindness, the gadget is so damn expensive, I will never be able to financially-afford it for the remainder of my life! Imagine, if my eyesight returned, I have nearly all the parts in my laboratory to build an equivalent device, saving me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars! Unfortunately, since I became BLIND, I will never receive an assistive technology for free, even if I desire to improve on such technology, companies only want my MONEY, and nothing more. 😔

During my eight wonderful years as an embedded systems developer of digital electronics, I was already permanently-disabled, but I had perfect eyesight, and WAS SPONSORED by many electrical engineering firms, such as Farnell (UK), element14 (SG), CircuitCo (USA), SparkFun (USA), a company in Australia (I forgot the name), and a couple more electrical engineering firms I had now forgotten their business names. — Ever since I became totally BLIND, I am no longer being sponsored, nor any assistive technology companies are interested in sponsoring me! Envision Technologies in The Netherlands considers my requests as “give-aways”, denying me their expensive Envision Glasses.

It’s simply not easy being totally BLIND with my digital electronics laboratory, stored in small, plastic drawers in my bedroom, with source code backups, encrypted on DVD-ROM discs! As I did mostly proprietary, next generation development work, most, if not all what I had done, does not exist anywhere online today. I also have a couple of tubes containing unused microcontrollers as DIP ICs, untouched by me since I became totally BLIND. Soon, my wife’s nephew, Josh, will be acquiring my digital electronics laboratory when he graduates his college course of electrical engineering!

Thanks for reading my latest blog post! Have a Great Day!

🇵🇭🇺🇸👨‍🦯🦽 📱⌨️📻🎧 📚🪀🧮

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Published by Marcos 🇵🇭🇺🇸

Happily-Married, comfortably poor, permanently disabled and totally BLIND. A Terrorism SURVIVOR that's still SURVIVING Terrorism + post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Scientist since 1977, Acoustician since 1979, Computer Scientist/Programmer since 1982, Seismologist since 1988, Criminologist (Behavioral Scientist) since 1992, and many more! Also, had worked in two civilian and one military virology labs in the USA between 1993 and 2003. A Generation X, Filipino-American US expat, living in The Philippines, whom was naturally-born in Boston, grew up mostly in Seattle, some in Chicago, and have lived in Anchorage & San Francisco. Became permanently-disabled in 2003 due to health-related illness, ending my moonlighting career as an independent private investigator in the USA. RETIRED independent developer of computing & electronics technologies after 35 wonderful years, including 20 wonderful years in GNU/Linux development & 8 wonderful years as an independent embedded systems developer of digital electronics. Former speech synthesis systems developer of 30 wonderful years, specializing in foreign language phoneme-to-speech synthesis. Also was a beta tester of third-party software-based speech synthesizers. Former FCC-licensed amateur radio operator of 20 wonderful years, beginning with 2m packet-radio & AmSat communications between Anchorage & Manila. Former member of Anchorage Amateur Radio Club and Mike & Key ARC in Seattle. Learned 10-finger QWERTY touch-typing on a manual typewriter in 1980 at a US-based elementary school. Mastered 10-finger QWERTY touch-typing without looking at the keyboard in 1986. Now have osteoarthritis in both of my hands from all that touch-typing! My primary computer programming language is C, which I learned in 1990. My secondary programming language is B.A.S.I.C., which I self-learned in 1982. Prior to my sight-loss, I used to program in LISP/CLISP and Prolog for my early development of artificial intelligence & machine learning programs. Daily, to compensate/facilitate my sight-loss, I am actively using Apple iOS VoiceOver, Google Android TalkBack and Amazon Fire OS VoiceView screen-readers, in addition to my external Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard and sometimes, my Orbit Writer Braille keyboard, as HOBBIES.

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