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Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology. By Elizabeth R. Petrick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Pp. vii+196. $49.95.
At first glance, print readers of Elizabeth R. Petrick's Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology might not notice that on the book's cover image, the digits typing on a computer keyboard are not fingers, but toes. Individuals without hands or arms, or with limited use of those appendages due to disabilities such as cerebral palsy, may employ any number of tools to alternatively control their computers. This includes electronic pointing systems operated by eye movement, sticks held in the mouth, and touch screens. There is no one input device that everyone can use, for example, to type a book review for Technology and Culture.
While contemporary personal computers allow hardware to work rather flexibly with software, this was not always the case. Petrick traces how, over the late twenty-first century, the U.S. personal computing industry- led by multinational companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and IBM, as well as smaller firms and entrepreneurs-designed and developed products to accommodate the needs of disabled computer users. Many of...