JAWS (screen reader) Totally Explained

Everything about Jaws Screen Reader totally explained

JAWS (an acronym for Job Access With Speech) is a screen reader, a software program for visually impaired users produced by the Blind and Low Vision Group at Freedom Scientific of St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. Its purpose is to make personal computers using Microsoft Windows accessible to blind and visually impaired users. It accomplishes this by providing the user with access to the information displayed on the screen via text-to-speech or by means of a braille display and allows for comprehensive keyboard interaction with the computer.
It also allows users to create custom scripts, which can alter the amount and type of information which is presented by applications, and ultimately makes programs that were not designed for accessibility (such as programs that don't use standard Windows controls) usable through JAWS.

History

JAWS was originally released in 1989 by Ted Henter, a former motorcycle racer who lost his sight in a 1978 automobile accident. In 1985, Henter, along with a $180,000USD investment from Bill Joyce, founded the Henter-Joyce Corporation in St. Petersburg, Florida. Joyce sold his interest in the company back to Ted Henter sometime in 1990. In April 2000, Henter-Joyce, Blazie Engineering, and Arkenstone, Inc. merged to form Freedom Scientific.
   JAWS was originally created for the MS-DOS operating system. It was one of several screen readers giving blind users access to text-mode MS-DOS applications. A feature unique to JAWS at the time was its use of cascading menus, in the style of the popular Lotus 1-2-3 application. What set JAWS apart from other screen readers of the era was its use of macros that allowed users to customize the user interface and work better with various applications.
   Ted Henter and Rex Skipper wrote the original JAWS code in the mid-1980s, releasing version 2.0 in mid-1990. Skipper left the company after the release of version 2.0, and following his departure, Charles Oppermann was hired to maintain and improve the product. Oppermann and Henter regularly added minor and major features and frequently released new versions. Freedom Scientific now offers JAWS for MS-DOS as a freeware download from their web site.
   In 1993, Henter-Joyce released a highly-modified version of JAWS for people with learning disabilities. This product, called WordScholar, is no longer available.

JAWS for Windows

In 1992, as Microsoft Windows became more popular, Oppermann began work on a new version of JAWS. A principal design goal wasn't to interfere with the natural user interface of Windows and to continue to provide a strong macro facility. Test and beta versions of JAWS for Windows (JFW) were shown at conferences throughout 1993 and 1994. During this time, developer Glen Gordon started working on the code, ultimately taking over its development when Oppermann was hired by Microsoft in November of 1994. Shortly afterwards, in January 1995, JAWS for Windows 1.0 was released.
Currently a new revision of JAWS for Windows is released about once a year, with minor updates in between. The latest version is 9.0, released in November 2007.

Release history

Version	Release date	Significant changes
JFW 1.0	January 1995	First version for Windows, supported Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11
JFW 2.0	About 1996	Added support for Windows 95
JFW 4.0	14 September 2001	Many changes to user interface Optional tutor and access key help added
JFW 4.5	August 30 2002	Quick navigation keys added to Internet Explorer, for navigating between HTML elements on a page
JFW 5.0	October 9 2003 (External Link) >	Many improvements with Internet support Speech and Sounds Manager, for indication of fonts, controls and web page elements.
JFW 6.0	3 March 2005 (External Link)	Introduction of Internet licencing Introduction of separate user settings
JFW 7.0	14 October 2005 (External Link)	Release of thumb drive version Support for Mozilla Firefox amongst other applications No longer supports Windows 95
JFW 7.1	21 June 2006	Automatic updates Switched to a Document Object Model engine for HTML rendering
JFW 8.0	17 November 2006	Ships with RealSpeak Solo SAPI 5 Speech Synthesizers No longer supports Windows 98 or Windows ME Supports Windows Vista
JFW 9.0	19 November 2007	HTML composition support New "adjust JAWS options" dialogue box

Further Information

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