Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

What do we call it TTY or TDD? Can we live without it?

The term “TTY” derives from “Teletype”, which is a registered trademark of the Teletype Corporation. “TDD”, a later term, stands for “Telecommunications Device for the Deaf”. Many people use the two terms interchangeably, while others use TTY for mechanical teleprinters and TDD for the modern electronic gadgets which perform the same function in a fraction of the size and weight. The TTY was first developed by Robert Weitbrecht, a deaf physicist. Mechanical printers have been largely replaced by solid state devices using transistorized circuitry and LED or LCD displays. They are small and light weight, hence portable. Some have been marketed that are the size of a pocket calculator.

Personally, we should call it “TTY” regardless. I realized that time has evolve over years since they develop hi-tech TTY. I remember when I was young; I used to call it TDD all the times. It’s no big deal. Well, it was never impact me personally till my deaf cousin Eddy Laird once told me that why can’t we stick with “TTY”. He made very good point that hearing community still called it “telephone” even it has changed words over years such as phone, cell phone, cordless phone, VoIP, whatever you called it.

My point is to preserve deaf culture; we should stick with “TTY”. I really think it is unique and powerful word which we still used in deaf community. Did you realize that “TDD” was invented just because TTY has gone into hi-tech device? Gimme break!

By the way, do you have TTY at home? You better be!

What choice do we have? It is probably one of the important pieces in ever household because there’s no way you can call 911 emergency phone calls without TTY itself or TTY modem and/or software with telephone line such as Nextalk products. You can’t call 911 emergency calls via mobile, instant messaging, email, and videophone.

Yes, things will get even better in couple of years (hopefully) where you can call emergency call over cell phone. They are working on technologies which they called it e911 and as well as install GPS (Global Position System) into every cell phone and PDAs.

You are not alone — I hardly use TTY these days but you make sure you dust your TTY regularly!

Looking for good cheap TTY? Go to http://www.krowntty.com

http://wally.rit.edu/depts/ref/research/deaf/ttyuse.html
http://www.amrad.org/projects/hex/hex_tty.htm

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite