Tom Masterson staggered into view and mumbled: > Remember that each braille cell in a display costs (last time I got a price) > There is a problem with the age supply and demand we > don't need enough parts to make manufaturing them cheap. So by the time you > add the cost of a case and the rest of the hardware not too mention the > labor for puting these together and other costs I don't think the companies > are making a huge proffit. Just a guess on my part. Actually, I can't believe for half a second that it's about supply and demand. The demand for these products is definitely out there, and, whether we like it or not, it's growing every day. Also, I do believe that these companies are making a very HUGE profit off of disabled peope. I am SURE that they mass-produce their products. Do you think even for a minute that someone actually sits down and makes a braille display from scratch by hand? I don't think so. Also, it is a little known fact that most of these companies have technology DONATED to them, which means they get it FREE. So I am sure that they are rolling in money. Well, for a non-hardware example, take a look at JAWS for Windows. The Windows operating system itself is $19. Just to make it talk costs another $1000. All this software does is use Microsoft-s accessibility technology which they allow Freedom Scientific to use Free to make the computer say what's on the screen, and the software is full of bugs that according to FS are "too hard to fix." Do you think even for a minute that the software costs $1000 a copy to make? Most definitely NOT. In fact, they offer this software to download as a demo off the internet, so it is definitely being mass-produced. And they have their own special software which can make mass copies of authorization disks, each with unique serial number keys. Actually, I think it's all the copy protection that they put into it that makes it cost so much. I guess they don't realize that if they simply lowered the price of the software that they wouldn't have to copy protect it, as people who need it would go ahead and buy it if it was less than $100 as it should be. Lorenzo Prince happy Red Hat 9 user ;) -- We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. (seen in someone's .signature) _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list