Okay, I'll defend the Lightwriter.
My dad has one, and he's also used a Dynawriter.
What we liked about the Lightwriter, that the Dynawriter lacked.
- Small. A keyboard and 2 LCD screens.... less to carry around than the Dyna.
- Two screens. One for dad to view whilst typing, and one pointing towards his partner.
That was the main benefit of it. He wouldn't always have to press the Speak button, as the listener, I'd be reading as he was typing. And lately as his typing has gone downhill, it's the best way to do it.... you can understand what he wants to say even with spelling mistakes.
The Dynawriter had things like being able to connect to telephones, more memory and a good number of tricks that to be honest my dad wasn't going to use. But the single screen turned out to be the killer failing of it.
A single line screen on the Lightwriter was not much of a problem. The machine is for carrying on a conversation, not writing essays.
Cost? Well, we avoided that issue. It is on loan to us from the local MND association, for which we are very grateful.
I looked at the possibility of using a Windows Laptop. There is good speech software and voices available, but small laptops that my dad can comfortably carry around just don't have loud enough speakers. You need a bit of volume.
Finally, a small whiteboard, markers and tissues works pretty well too.
My dad's eyesight is failing. His eyelids droop, which is an effect of using morphine. And so his typing starting to fail. He just types even though he can't see what he is producing, often producing gibberish, which he finds embarrassing. So lately he has reverted back to the whiteboard where his lettering is correct even with eyes closed.
So. There.