11th November 2003, 3:04 PM
No no, while his neural disease has all but paralyzed him, he controls his voice simulator via his hand which he can still control enough to click a button. His system involves a selector that scrolls automatically (since he doesn't have enough muscle control to scroll it himself) until the right "line" is pointed to, at which point he clicks, and then it scrolls along this line until the correct word on it is highlighted, and then he clicks again, and thus his GENIUS is revealed to the world one word at a time.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)