The Fishburne tactile code
The Fishburne code for tactile reading was developed in 1972 by S.B. Fishburne. The code is made up of four symbols (a dot, a vertical dash, a horizontal dash and a diagonal dash) which are used in a repeating pattern to make up the alphabet. For example, for letters A-F, a dot is used, with the pattern as follows: one dot in the top half of the cell (A), one dot in the bottom half of the cell (B), one dot in either half (C), two dots in the top half (D), two dots in the bottom half (E) and two dots in either half (F). The letters G-L use a vertical dash, following the same pattern.
What is Fishburne used for?
Fishburne was designed as a labelling code, and was not intended to be used for reading materials. The size of a Fishburne cell is 12 x 24 mm, meaning it would not be feasible to produce books or magazines in the code as they would be unmanageable.
Fishburne use today
Over the last ten years, the popularity of the Fishburne code has declined, with many users preferring to use formats which are more flexible such as braille.
Fishburne resources
Training resources to learn the Fishburne alphabet exist. The resources include a magnetic display board with Fishburne characters with accompanying audio tapes.
Labelling kits are also available which produce self adhesive Fishburne labels.