In the Summer of 1994 I started working at Thurrock Care Special Day Care Unit in Grays, Essex. Here we supported about 15 adults, with "severe learning and/or physical disabilities" in leisure pursuits, physio, accessing the community and their independence.

A computer section had been in place before me, with a BBC Micro and Master computer with various assistive technology. These included a gated one-hand joystick, switches, touch-screens, slo-mo devices, switch adapted toys and gadgets and so on.

Early in work, I was tasked with running a music group. One of the ladies there was a big fan of ABBA and would light up to songs she enjoyed. This reminded me of a Commoodore 64 title I had at home called Music Maker Pop Hits. This had a "Single key play" mode, where you could step through, or "conduct" tunes using the SPACE BAR alone.

I remembered that a joystick in one of the joystick ports would trigger the SPACE BAR. I took this set-up into a music session at Thurrock (and later Concorde in Basildon) where you could wiggle a light-touch one-handed Quickshot II joystick to. The lady who liked Abba, was then able to tap the joystick, with a repeat arm movement she made... with the hope that she'd realise that she could control some of her favourite songs. Albeit in SID chip 8-bit guise. She was very interested the first time, but the fascination wore off, so we kept trying other things.

Barrie
OneSwitch.org.uk