Extracts from Orbit-Reader-20-User-Guide-V1.8 2
5. Orientation
To begin with, place the device on a flat surface in front of you with the row of braille cells closest to
you. This is the proper operational orientation.
At the back of the device, from left to right, is the Power button (left), an SD card slot (middle), and a
Micro-B USB port (right).
5.1. Key Placement and Use
The Panning keys are at each end of the braille display.
For orientation purposes, there are three slightly raised tick marks located above the braille cells.
These orientation marks are spaced by every fifth braille cell.
Moving towards the top and away from you, find a row of three keys, with a wider key- in the
middle. The wide key is the Space bar. The Dot 7 input key is to the left of the Space Bar, and the Dot
8 input key is to the right of the Space Bar.
Above the three keys, is a navigation pad in the middle, between the Braille Input keys and Space
bar. The navigation pad contains four directional arrow buttons (Up, Down, Left, Right) and the
Select button.
The six traditional braille input keys are aligned horizontally along the top edge of the face of the
display, Dots 3 2 1 on the left and Dots 4 5 6 on the right.
In Stand-Alone mode, the Braille Input keys are used for navigation and editing/writing. In Remote
mode, while using the display with a screen reader on a host device, like an iPhone, the Braille Input
keys can be used to input text or control functionality of applications.
5.2. Panning Keys
The Panning keys are two-function rocker keys found at either end of the braille display. To read the
next display of text (panning forward), press the bottom part of the key (down) on either Panning
key. To read the previous display of text (panning backward), press the top part of the key (up) on
either Panning key.
5.3. 8-Dot Braille Cells
It is similar to six-dot braille with two additional dots below Dot 3 and Dot 6. These two additional
dots are called Dot 7 and Dot 8, and they are used to indicate capitalization in the Computer Braille
Code (Computer Braille) or to indicate some attributed text or a cursor.
Eight-dot Computer Braille is similar to uncontracted braille, except that it features a one-to-one
correspondence with the plain text (ASCII) characters. Computer Braille does not require an
additional cell to show a capitalization indicator. Instead, Dot 7 is added to the lowercase version of
the letter.
6. Getting Started
The Orbit Reader 20 has two modes: Stand-Alone mode and Remote mode. In Stand-Alone mode,
the device is a book reader that uses an SD card as reading media. In Remote mode, the device
works like other braille display and needs to be connected to a computer or other host with a screen
reader.