Explanation

                                                           Explanation
It never occurred to me that anybody on writing.com might not be familiar with eye-controlled computers. I got my first eye-controlled computer in 1985. Daddy and I were watching a local news program one Sunday evening. Toward the end of the broadcast, a woman in a nursing home in Greenville, North Carolina appeared on our television screen with the first eye-controlled computer I’d ever seen.

Daddy ordered my first eye-controlled computer the next day. When it arrived a week later, it looked as if it was an ordinary IBM pc junior. Any well person could’ve used his or her fingers to operate its keyboard, but it was loaded with my special software and it also responded to my special eye switch.

My special eye switch has changed little from that day to this. Anyone, who has ever seen a burglar alarm activated by an interrupted infrared beam of light, understands how my eye switch works. A pair of glasses holds my special switch in front of my eye. It emits a small infrared light beam. When I move my eyelashes, they break the infrared light beam and activate my computer.

Modern technology has developed two new eye switches for quadriplegics. One uses a video camera to measure a person’s eye movements and activate his or her computer. The other uses a person’s brain waves to activate his or her computer. Both systems are more expensive than my infrared system.

The heart of my eye-controlled computer is my special scanning software. To the best of my knowledge, all three switching systems use my special scanning software. When I got my IBM pc junior, my scanning software took up my entire computer screen and when my computer scanned on the letter, word, or function I wanted, I just blinked.

Windows changed all that. My special software now occupies a corner of my computer screen. It still scans letters, words, and functions, but a special mouse function lets me scan different icons for the Internet or whatever I want to use.

If my eye-controlled computer sounds complicated, it is. Light moves at 186 thousand miles per second. Directing an infrared light beam toward my eyelash is never easy. If I had some fingers I could use, I’d appreciate them a million more times than I used to. I hope everyone, who reads this, appreciates his or her fingers a little more.