2005.45

Talking Wallet

Black rectangular plastic case, lightly textured surface; hinged on back with spring loaded steel hinges; plastic catch on front; recessed gray "on" button and rotating volume control knob on top; snowflake pattern pierced speaker holes on top; earphone jack on right; power and data jacks on left; raised silver lettering with braille captions.

H-2 W-6.25 D-3.75 inches

ca. 1980

Boston Information & Technology Corporation/American Foundation for the Bl

Boston, MA

Device was owned and used by the donor, Ed Meyers, who is blind. The talking wallet recognized 1s, 5s, 10s, and 20s and announced their value. It was developed by BIT (Mohymen Saddeek, President) in cooperation with AFB. In a 1992 edition of AFB's Braille Monitor, Saddeek reported that roughly 150 were manufactured before the company failed in a dispute over the product.
Adaptive aids are devices and tools that have been adapted or invented to enable visually impaired persons to perform sight-related tasks independently. Talking adaptive aids are tools that supply a voice reading of the information normally gained by sight. Such aids include the talking scale, clock, watch, timer, blood-pressure monitor, thermometer, blood-glucose monitoring kit, talking wallet, label makers, calculators, and computer-speech output.

Gift of Ed Myers, 2005.45.