Lomak inventor, Mike Watling, tells his story
"Some years ago, I was working with a mechanic whose son was in a residential home for disabled youths. I was asked to repair an electric wheel-chair for one of the residents and ended up delivering it in person. The residential home housed about ten youths, most of whom had cerebral palsy. While the repaired wheelchair was being put through its paces, I tried to communicate with some of the residents and was frustrated by the tools they were using and my inability to understand even the simplest message.
"One resident was using a cardboard picture board and blinking her eyes to convey information. She was obviously very intelligent and knew what to say but I was not experienced enough to read the messages and was getting nowhere fast. In a fit of bravado, I boasted to a group of resident’s that in this age of electronic wizardry I could probably make a machine which would speak for them and that it would probably only take a few months to create this as yet unknown device.
"On leaving, I realized I had offered a window of hope to people who were totally dependent on others for communication and would probably not be able to deliver on the boast. This was not a position I felt very comfortable with and resolved to at least try for a solution. The few months turned into years and the communicator turned into a computer keyboard. The rest, as they say, is history.
"The residential home, was my first real exposure to people with cerebral palsy. It bothers me even now, how frustrating it must be to be an intelligent person locked inside a body that refuses to respond properly. I think some of that frustration was transmitted to me on that first day and is quite likely the prime driver behind the development of the Lomak and now Notesai and Claser.
"I started with the concept of using a light beam rather than a physical actuator as I felt this would eliminate friction and give some speed to the process. Small lasers were not yet available at this time and the closest I could get was a security photo-sensor, actuated by culminated infra red beams. I thought that if I could move a visible dot around a target of photo sensors, I could draw alphabetic letters and produce words, one letter at a time.
"This concept progressed to creating Braille letters and then to the idea of creating a symbolic language, like shorthand, which had the advantage of being a proven system and would help with input speed. I grappled with two major problems:- how to produce words in symbolic form, and, how to reduce the error rate by eliminating incorrect selections.
"I realized that if I arranged the alphabet in a circle I would be able to create symbolic words by crossing from one letter to the other. This arrangement would eliminate the need for extra computing to decide which letter or symbol had been produced. With the circle configuration, commonly used words would become easily remembered “symbols” and the user would create these readily in the same way that one learns to touch type without looking at the keys.
"I decided the spaces would have to be on the horizontal axis for two reasons, one being that the most relaxed and natural head movement is from side to side and the option of having a space on the right and left horizontal would give the user a choice of fluid movement without having to change direction.
"To tackle the problem of incorrect selection, I intended using a dwell on the selected key but soon discarded this as it would only frustrate the user. It occurred to me that if the user separately confirmed each selection, this would greatly reduce errors and allow the user to operate it at their own speed.. There was only one logical place to put a confirm key and that was right in the middle of the circular configuration where the user invariably passes.
"I felt I had, in this manner, solved two problems in one bang:- the creation of a suitable symbolic language, and, minimising errors. I still see this breakthrough as the cornerstone of Lomak. At this stage I was still focused on developing a communication device but was rapidly coming to the conclusion that a computer keyboard would have more flexibility and still be able to produce words through software. I decided to add two more circles to the original concept, one for numerals and the other for whatever functions would be needed for punctuation and navigation.
"The light operated keyboard had now reached a stage where I could start building a prototype. I decided on a 60mm radius for the main photo diode circle and a 600mm actuating distance for the light triggering device. I used a trial and error method with a rod in place of the light beam and painted letters on a cardboard target. Although crude, I needed to get a feel for the movement required to create a fluid motion and was able to try different sizes and distances without committing to an expensive testing process.
"I built the first prototype out of wood and introduced a curved front face for the target, to compensate for a weak signal dot. This meant that at 600mm distance each character was equidistant from the light dot source and received maximum signal strength. The receiver worked by flooding a photo-diode with light-signal, latching that character ‘on’ and resetting it when either another character was selected or the centre “confirm” was actuated. The latch mechanism turned on an indicating LED that was mounted next to each character.
"The first prototype was named the LOCT unit (light operated computer terminal) and took approximately 20 years to mature into the Lomak which itself is now maturing into a family of similar products."
(Mike Watling - Inventor of Lomak)
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