WEBVTT 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:53.280 It is nineteen eighteen, and Mary Jameson is reading. 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:59.439 She was born blind, and she usually reads braille. 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:05.359 But the page in front of her is an ordinary printed page. 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:08.640 Black ink on white paper. 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:13.359 There is a machine between her and the page. 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:22.959 A delicate arrangement of lenses and wires, a spinning disc and a small piece of an element called Selenium. 00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:33.280 As the mechanism moves slowly across the print, the machine sends a collection of musical notes into a pair of telephone receivers. 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:35.920 And Mary listens. 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:44.000 She hears in the sounds one letter, then another. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.359 Eventually, a word. 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:50.799 It is slow work. 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.760 And the machine is temperamental. 00:01:53.760 --> 00:02:02.640 Its focusing mechanism is so delicate that someone walking heavily across the room can knock it out of alignment. 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:06.400 But Mary has been practicing. 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:12.080 By the summer of 1918, she can read about one word per minute. 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:17.680 And that is enough to prove that it is possible. 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:24.960 I'm Daina Bouquin and this is Found in the Machine. 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:40.960 In June 1912, a physicist named Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe arrives at an optical convention in London with an invention. 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:44.479 Fournier d'Albe is an unusual man. 00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:51.360 A scientist and writer with interests ranging from electricity to spiritualism. 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:55.759 He knows some of the most prominent thinkers of the age. 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:58.479 He has befriended Harry Houdini. 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:06.400 And he has spent years studying the properties of a chemical element called selenium. 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:10.080 Selenium does something peculiar. 00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:14.960 In darkness, it resists the passage of electricity. 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:20.319 But if you shine a light on it, that resistance changes. 00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:27.039 Alexander Graham Bell had used it in an instrument that transmitted sound on a beam of light. 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:38.479 And in Poland, an ophthalmologist named Kazimierz Noiszewski had used it as an artificial eye to help blind people tell light from darkness. 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:43.439 And Fournier d'Albe is working on a very similar idea. 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:48.879 His instrument is housed in a slender wooden box. 00:03:48.879 --> 00:04:00.240 Inside is a selenium cell that responds to light, producing changes in an electrical signal that a person can hear through telephone receivers. 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:04.319 Point it toward a window and the sound changes. 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:08.159 Move it toward a corner and it changes again. 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:16.639 He calls it the exploring optophone, and he imagines it helping blind people navigate the world. 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:19.680 The newspapers are delighted. 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:26.639 But among the people who learn about the invention is a blind solicitor named Washington Ranger. 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:29.839 Ranger writes to Fournier d'Albe. 00:04:29.839 --> 00:04:40.399 What concerns him is how a blind person might earn a living. 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:44.399 A person who can detect a window has learned something about a room. 00:04:44.399 --> 00:04:52.160 But a person who can read an ordinary printed page has access to an enormous part of the working world. 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:56.879 Letters, newspapers, documents, books. 00:04:56.879 --> 00:05:02.079 So Fournier d'Albe begins working on another machine. 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:10.639 By 1913, he has an experimental reading optophone. 00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:20.319 The First World War interrupts his work, but he returns to it, building an instrument that turns the shapes of printed letters into sounds. 00:05:20.319 --> 00:05:26.560 To understand how this machine works, imagine a capital T. 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:32.480 One upright line topped with a horizontal stroke. 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:41.120 Now imagine a tiny vertical row of lights moving slowly across that letter from left to right. 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:48.959 Each of the little lights flickers at a different rate, corresponding to a different musical note. 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:58.079 The flickering comes from a spinning disc pierced with holes laid out in concentric rings passing in front of a lamp. 00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:05.519 When the light falls on white paper, it reflects back toward a selenium cell. 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:08.399 And the listener hears a chord. 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:10.720 All of the notes are on. 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:15.040 But black ink reflects much less light. 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:20.160 So when the light passes over the ink, some notes disappear. 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:27.839 So as the row of lights moves across the T, the beginning of the top stroke interrupts a note. 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:32.560 Then the vertical line interrupts the whole chord. 00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:40.879 The light continues past the vertical line with only the top stroke continuing to interrupt one note. 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:50.240 A person listening through the device has to recognize the letter T by the notes that disappear. 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:53.040 It's reading by absence. 00:06:53.040 --> 00:07:03.920 In the spring of 1917, Fournier d'Albe demonstrates the instrument to representatives of the National Institute for the Blind. 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:11.199 He manages to read an unfamiliar newspaper passage, but the demonstration does little to convince them. 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:14.000 This machine is slow. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:19.839 It takes extensive training, and its practical usefulness remains uncertain. 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:22.720 And these are reasonable objections. 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:27.360 But Fournier d'Albe keeps looking for people willing to learn. 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:35.040 That year he meets 18-year-old Mary Jameson and her twin sister Margaret. 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:42.560 The sisters already know Braille, and now they begin learning the strange new system of sounds. 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:45.120 And Mary takes to it. 00:07:45.120 --> 00:07:47.759 Not immediately. 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:51.360 There is nothing immediate about learning the optophone. 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:56.399 She must memorize the musical patterns of printed letters. 00:07:56.399 --> 00:08:00.800 She must distinguish sounds that can be maddeningly similar. 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:03.600 And she has to manage the machine itself. 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:09.120 Page must be positioned correctly, and the mechanism must be focused. 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:12.720 The scanner must be moving at the right speed. 00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:17.680 Too quickly and the letters become an unintelligible stream. 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:22.240 But too slowly and she loses track of what came before. 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:24.959 But she practices. 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:32.320 And by August 1918, she gives a demonstration at King's College in London. 00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:40.480 Someone in the audience has connections to Barr and Stroud, a Scottish company known for precision optical instruments. 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:44.960 And the company agrees to build a more practical optophone. 00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:52.639 The machine is sturdier with a curved glass surface on which a book can rest. 00:08:52.639 --> 00:08:57.679 Its scanning mechanism moves more reliably across the page. 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:05.279 And its designers add a second Selenium cell so the machine can sound the black ink itself. 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:12.080 Now, instead of listening for the notes that disappear, Mary can listen for the notes that are there. 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:14.879 But the signals are faint. 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:20.399 And after an hour or two, the selenium cells begin crackling. 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:33.840 In June 1920, Fournier d'Albe announces in the journal Nature that the problem of opening the world's literature to blind readers has been solved. 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:40.159 It is a remarkable claim and entirely premature. 00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:43.519 The Optophone is expensive. 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:50.720 It remains difficult to operate, and it demands an enormous investment of time. 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:54.159 Mary knows this better than anyone. 00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:57.759 By now she is its most accomplished reader. 00:09:57.759 --> 00:10:04.080 She travels to demonstrations and exhibitions, showing audiences what the machine can do. 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:07.519 And she is also helping to design it. 00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:13.039 At Bar and Stroud's London branch, she works with an engineer named A. 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:13.279 M. 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:14.399 Lundie. 00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:20.639 She suggests changes to the musical notes so that certain letters are easier to tell apart. 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:26.720 She asks for stronger signals to hear over the noise of the mechanism itself. 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:34.559 She works with Lundie on a device that moves between lines and on a feature for reading italic type. 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:38.799 She teaches other blind people how to use it. 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:41.600 And her speed keeps climbing. 00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:49.279 From one word per minute to 25, then 40, then 60. 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:56.159 She is doing the labor of a developer and a public ambassador, but she is doing it informally. 00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:00.720 So her father, Thomas Jameson, writes to Barr and Stroud. 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:06.879 He wants the company to recognize her vital work with proper compensation and a formal place. 00:11:06.879 --> 00:11:14.639 Barr and Stroud pays Mary for individual demonstrations, but never gives her regular employment. 00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:18.000 Still, she keeps working. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:23.519 And in 1921, Mary sits down to read a novel. 00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:27.600 It is The Warden by Anthony Trollope. 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:36.480 Published in 1855, it tells the story of a kindly clergyman caught in a dispute over money at a charitable institution. 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:41.440 Mary places the book on the Optophone. 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:47.039 She finds the first line and she begins to read. 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:51.759 She no longer labors over individual sounds. 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:55.120 Familiar patterns begin to come together. 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:58.559 And she starts to notice something. 00:11:58.559 --> 00:12:05.759 The more she reads a particular author, the easier it becomes to anticipate what comes next. 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:10.879 A writer has habits, certain turns of phrase. 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:15.840 But when she begins a book by someone new, the work becomes harder again. 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:21.919 So she deliberately decides to read writers who differ widely in style. 00:12:21.919 --> 00:12:31.519 She reads Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, an autobiography by Herman Charles Merivale, and others. 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:33.840 And she finishes The Warden. 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:40.240 But even as Mary becomes more proficient, the future of the Optophone is becoming less certain. 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:46.320 Most people who try it never approach her speed, and few schools can afford one. 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:52.240 Braille is already established, reliable, and widely taught. 00:12:52.240 --> 00:12:58.879 By 1922, Barr and Stroud is doubting whether there will ever be enough customers. 00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:03.200 By 1928, the company has stopped pushing the machines. 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:08.080 Fournier d'Albe dies in 1933. 00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:12.879 Only a small number of Optophones have been sold. 00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:17.279 But Mary Jameson keeps reading. 00:13:17.279 --> 00:14:11.039 In 1944, the organization St. Dunstan's takes up the British Optophone and replaces the old selenium cells with photoelectric cells that are much louder. In the 1950s, a man named W. K. Hill improves the focusing, making it easier to tell similar letters apart. Mary tests the changes. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, engineers at RCA are building a machine that tries to identify the printed characters itself. The effort is led in part by Vladimir Zworykin, a man who had examined Fournier d'Albe's Optophones decades earlier. RCA's work is an early step toward what we now call optical character recognition. 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:19.360 The task of deciphering the page is beginning to move from the person into the machine. 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:26.559 It is 1966. 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:35.360 Nearly 50 years have passed since Mary first sat down with the Optophone. 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:41.840 She records a presentation for a conference on reading machines in the United States. 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:46.559 She remembers the delicate early machine. 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:50.559 But most of her talk concerns the machines being built now. 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:55.840 She's still asking questions to improve listening devices. 00:14:55.840 --> 00:15:03.200 She wonders which notes are easier to distinguish and which letters are harder to recognize. 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:12.480 In the years that follow Mary's presentation, she exchanges letters and tape recordings with blind Americans working on newer machines. 00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:21.200 One of them, Harvey Lauer of the United States Veterans Administration, sends her a device called a visotoner. 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:30.639 It's smaller and more portable than her old Optophone, but it is hard to keep aligned with the text and it struggles with certain colors of ink. 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.360 She weighs the two machines. 00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:38.960 She knows what she likes about her old one and she knows what she wishes it could do. 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:42.159 She knows what it already does. 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:49.519 The Optophone is as much a part of my everyday life as the typewriter or telephone. 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:54.240 Sometimes the print is too big for the Optophone array. 00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:57.840 At others, italics are too sloping. 00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:06.879 While noting the shortcomings of the Optophone, I can use the valuable facilities it already gives. 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:15.919 I hope this situation makes me of use in solving vital print reading problems which remain. 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:20.639 Mary Jameson passes away in 1980. 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:25.200 By then the Optophone belongs to an earlier age. 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:30.639 Computers will soon recognize printed letters on their own and read them out loud. 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:36.639 But there is a photograph of Mary, taken decades earlier. 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:41.840 She is seated at an Optophone reading The Warden. 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:46.960 She wears a pair of telephone receivers over her ears. 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:50.799 The book rests on the machine in front of her. 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:58.399 Somewhere inside a disc is spinning and light is falling across the printed page. 00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:02.320 And the machine is making its little collection of sounds. 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:06.319 Mary knows what they say. 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:13.519 I'm Daina Bouquin and this is Found in the Machine. 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:25.039 If you enjoy my stories, consider passing them along or leaving a rating or a review wherever you listen. 00:17:25.039 --> 00:17:36.480 And if you'd like to support the show, you can go to found in the machine.com/ support, and you can find our Patreon and other ways to support the show. 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:42.880 The most recent bonus episode received by Patreon members was about the twenty thirty-eight problem. 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.160 Thanks for listening, guys.