Night writing visited the National Institute for the Blind in Paris, France, where he met Louis Braille. Braille identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. His modification was to use a six-dot cell, the Braille system that revolutionized written communication for the visually impaired. Night writing Night writing, a.k.a. sonography, was a system of code that used symbols of twelve dots arranged as two columns of six dots embossed on a square of paperboard, and is now
Louis Braille for Representing by Dots the Form of Letters, Maps, Geometric Figures, Musical Symbols, etc., for Use by the Blind" was first published in 1839. Many of Braille's original printed works remain available at the Braille birthplace museum in Coupvray. "New Method for Representing by Dots..." (1839) put forth Braille's plan for a new writing system with which blind people could write letters that could be read by sighted people. Called decapoint, the system combined his method of dot-punching with a new specialized grill which Braille devised to overlay the paper. When used with an associated number table (also designed by