inventor of TTY dies at 85

[Mark A. Mandel]

>>From the New York Times. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23marsters.html

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August 23, 2009
James Marsters, Deaf Inventor, Dies at 85
By DENNIS HEVESI

Sign language, lip reading and speech training helped James Marsters get 
through college and dental school and made it possible for him to succeed 
as an orthodontist. He could communicate very well face to face.

But for most of his first 40 years, the telephone was a barrier.

"All of us in the family, whenever a call came for my dad," his son James 
Jr. said on Friday, "we picked up this handset attached to the phone so 
that we could listen in and relay to my father what the caller was saying. 
He would read our lips and then reply in his own voice."

Dr. Marsters and two deaf colleagues broke that barrier for themselves and 
tens of thousands of other hearing-impaired people in 1964 when they 
converted an old, bulky, clacking Teletype machine into a device that could 
relay a typewritten conversation through a telephone line. It was the first 
example of what became commonly known as a TTY and is now, in a greatly 
updated and compact version, called a text telephone.

Dr. Marsters died of natural causes at his home in Oakland, Calif., on July 
28, his son said. He was 85.


[For the full article go to 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23marsters.html .]

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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