Chorded keyboard (a writing system for the blind) uses either 6 or 8 tactile 'points' from which all letters and numbers are formed. When Louis Braille invented it, it was produced with a needle holing successively all needed points in a cardboard sheet. In 1892, Frank Haven Hall, superintendent of the Illinois Institute for the Education of the Blind, created the Hall Braille Writer, which was like a typewriter with 6 keys, one for each dot in a braille cell. The Perkins Brailler, first manufactured in 1951, uses a 6-key chord keyboard (plus a spacebar) to produce braille output, and has been
Missouri School for the Blind handling its operation. Although more than one claim has been made regarding the title of "first braille printing press in the United States," some authorities have clearly awarded that title to the Missouri School. Harvard professor Gabriel Farrell states definitively, "The first real printing press for the blind in the United States was invented and operated by Henry Robyn, head of the music department at the Missouri School for the Blind, in 1865." Missouri School for the Blind The Missouri School for the Blind is an educational institution in the United States specially designed for students who are blind or