This is the world's first portable electronic brailler, a machine that types in braille. (Braille is an alphabet made up of raised dots that blind people read with their fingertips). It was developed between 1985 and 1989 by an English charity, the Mountbatten Trust, to replace the primitive Perkins brailler, which was designed in America back in the 1930s.

The Trust held an international competition to find a firm to develop their prototype further and to mass produce it. Expertise in both electronics and the creation of products for disabled consumers gave Quantum Technology in Sydney the competitive edge.

Quantum specialises in products for people with disabilities. The company had experience making braille printers for computers and revised the electronics so that the new brailler could talk to computers as well as type in braille electronically.

By 2000 the brailler was being used in 32 countries and sales were increasing.

Debbie Rudder
Curator, 2008

Quantum specialises in products for people with disabilities. The company had experience making braille printers for computers and revised the electronics so that the new brailler could talk to computers as well as type in braille electronically.

Brailler, 'Mountbatten', instruction book and connector box, plastic (ABS)/ metal, Quantum Technology, Australia, 1990

The Mountbatten Brailler consists of a yellow panel, black keys for the Braille dots and bright blue buttons. The blue buttons are for the important backspace key, left and right function keys and an enter key. Below the Braille keys are two thin keys (also blue) - the right key inserts a space between words, and the left key moves paper to the next line and the embossing head back to the left hand position.

Made: 1990

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1990