1. M40_V45.exe Driver
2. Addendum I.txt File Contents

Addendum I.txt Driver File Contents (M40_V45.exe)

Braille Lite M20,
Braille Lite M40
and Type Lite


Firmware Revision 4.5

Update Documentation


Thank you for downloading  this firmware update for your Millennium notetakers. This update incorporates a number of new features and improvements based on your feedback. Thank you for your continued support of our notetakers. Your input makes these products more powerful and reliable.

This update program will function only if you already have firmware revision 4.1 installed in your unit. If you are using an older firmware level, the update will fail to complete. To install this update, copy the appropriate .bns file into your notetaker and run it as you would run any external program. Refer to your Product Manual for more information on updating your unit.

Note: You must run this update from bank A. However, we encourage you to update both banks with revision 4.5. If you wish to keep a copy of revision 4.1, retain it only in bank B.


What's New In Millennium 4.5?

New in Speech:
Unnecessary pauses in speech, especially on M20 units, have been reduced. Speech is now much more smooth and responsive.


Two new speech parameter settings have been added: 

1. There is now a new key echo setting for "characters and words." You can toggle between available key echo settings with the SPACEBAR.
2. You can also change speech articulation (that is, the clarity of pronouncing sounds with speech). Press DOT 4 CHORD to decrease articulation, and DOT 1 CHORD to increase it. On the Type Lite, the commands are ALT+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW and ALT+SHIFT+UP ARROW.

When speech rate, volume, pitch or articulation are modified, the unit will announce and display the new parameter values.

New in Compact Flash support:
Files stored on a Compact Flash card can be opened directly from the card. Press O-CHORD (or ENTER on the Type Lite) when pointing at the file you would like to read, and the notetaker will open it for viewing.

Files can now be moved between a Compact Flash card and the notetaker. To move a single file, press DOTS 1-3-4-8 while pointing to a file. If the file is in RAM or Flash, it will be moved to the folder last accessed on your CF card. If the file is on Compact Flash, it will be moved to RAM or Flash, depending on where you were when you accessed Compact Flash. Standard file marking techniques can be used to move multiple files.

This build introduces a new format for system backup. The unit can read backups produced with earlier firmware versions, but the new format is not backward compatible. Earlier firmware revisions cannot read the new backup format.

File position and file numbers are now preserved in a backup.

Long file names are now preserved when you copy files to Compact Flash. This also applies to backup and restore operations. In the past, file names were truncated to 8.3 format.

Files on the CF card with names longer than 20 characters will have their names truncated as you view them on your notetaker. The first 19 characters of the file name will be shown: character 20 is the "Greater Than" sign. This alerts you to the fact that the name could not be displayed in full. To see the complete file name, press I-CHORD as you point at the file.

When navigating the file structure on your CF card, you can now determine the name of the current folder. To do so, press DOTS 2-3-5-6 CHORD.

New in Email:
New versions of Email.bns and Mailer.bns are included with this update. 

You can now temporarily shell out from almost anywhere in Email.bns to perform other tasks with the unit. A single keystroke will return you to the e-mail program.

Press S-CHORD to Shell Out. The unit says: "Entering shell, press Z-CHORD to return". At this point, you have access to most standard functions of your unit. You can access files, use the calculator, retrieve time and date, etc. You cannot run an external program while shelled out. To return to Email, press Z-CHORD. You must return from shell and close the Email program before powering off the unit.

You can now use the clipboard to copy and paste data between the e-mail program and other functions within the unit. Commands to copy or append, and paste data, are available in Email. As you read a message, you can copy any portion of it to the clipboard as if you were copying text in any other file. Then, shell out to another function within the unit and paste that information. You can also copy data to the clipboard from any file in the unit, and then paste it into an e-mail message, the Address Book, etc.

Because we are now using S-CHORD as the keystroke to shell out, the command to filter messages has been changed to T-CHORD.

A spell checker is now available in the message editor. To spell check a message you are composing, press O-CHORD to open the context menu. Spell check is the first item on the menu, so you can press E-CHORD to open it. All standard spell checker commands are available. The spell checker functions from the current cursor position to the end of file. To spell check the entire message, you must position the cursor at the beginning of the message.

There is a new menu-driven Configuration Editor in Email.bns. To access it, press O-CHORD while in the message List, then DOTS 4-5-6 CHORD to select the Edit Email Configuration option. Press E-CHORD to activate the editor. You can then navigate through the Configuration Editor by using menus and submenus. For most menu items, you can press H-CHORD for brief, context-sensitive help.

You can now configure the e-mail program so that Insert will be the default mode for all messages, including replies and forwards. In the past, Append was the default mode, causing the message being replied to or forwarded to be placed above new text.

When replying or forwarding, the header fields in the original message are now included. 

You can now limit the number of messages to be downloaded from the server.

MAILER.BNS has been designed so that it will disconnect from your Internet provider immediately after your mail has been retrieved. Note that in the previous builds the disconnect process took a few seconds.

Other New Features

Global Replace is now available in the Spell Checker. When the Spell Checker encounters a word it does not know, you will receive the usual options. If you choose to "Enter the correct word in document", or if you pick a suggestion, you will hear another question: "Replace all occurrences? Y/N?" If you answer "Yes", the word will be replaced globally in the document. Otherwise, the replacement will occur only once.

When you are asked to enter information such as file names, you can now use the same navigation commands used in Phone Book and Datebook. 

* line movement commands
* I-CHORD toggles between Append, Insert and Overwrite modes
* Cursor routers
* Press DOT 7 to BACKSPACE
* DOT 8 is the Enter key. In menus, DOT 8 is the same as pressing E-CHORD. 

If you attempt to execute a macro that has not been defined, the unit will announce “Macro doesn’t exist”.

In earlier versions,  a compatibility problem existed between the notetakers and OpenBook 6.X. OpenBook could not transfer files at higher speeds, while the notetakers would set baud rate automatically to 115200 in WinDisk mode. To help you in these instances, you can now turn off Auto Max Baud. This is done in the Status Menu, and the quick key for this option is M-CHORD. By default, Auto Max Baud is on. If you experience compatibility problems, you can turn this feature off, and set the baud rate manually. Your baud rate setting will then apply to WinDisk. If you are using OpenBook 7.0, you should leave Auto Max Baud turned on.

A large Help file is built into the firmware. As usual, you can access it by pressing DOTS 1-4-5-6 CHORD.


What’s Fixed in Millennium 4.5?

* The code has been optimized to improve performance. For example, you will notice that the unit now starts up almost instantly.
* We have updated the keyboard driver to fix the Whiz Wheels bounce-back problem. The new driver will be installed right after the unit does a Warm Reset at the end of the update process.
* For consistency with the Legacy notetakers, we have changed the command that immediately advances the display during autoscroll from DOT 7 to SpaceBar.
* If you leave your notetaker in WinDisk mode, you will now receive the "Hello!" message every five minutes, to alert you that the notetaker is still on. In the past, this message was not spoken when the unit was in WinDisk mode.
* Calculator memory values are now retained after a Warm Reset.
* Compact Flash messages for restore, backup and formatting have been made more user-friendly.
* When Total Punctuation is selected in Speech Parameters, the units will no longer announce extra spaces that are not in the file.
* The voice settings are now saved and restored after a Braille-only startup. Previously, if you started the unit in Braille only, and then re-enabled speech, the voice would return to the default settings.
* If you press a routing key or a Whiz Wheel while in Speech Parameters, the action will be ignored.
* You can now search for Braille contractions for "ou" and "ow" in Grade II files, even if they were entered as uppercase characters. This is especially helpful in Braille files downloaded from the National Library Service WebBraille site and the Bookshare site.
* DOTS 1-5-6 CHORD now reports the correct cursor position. 
* DOTS 1-5-6 CHORD now reports the correct column count after a page break. 
* Problems with reporting and moving to absolute page have been fixed.
* You can now navigate to the first line in a file even if the line has only one character and "Skip Blank Lines" is off. 
* The Word Count command now works as expected.
* Control characters are now displayed correctly in the Find dialog. You can search for control characters and see them on the display.
* Several issues with password-protecting files have been resolved.
* A number of issues related to speech in macros have been corrected. As the result, macro speech is now much more reliable, and macro execution is faster, especially if speech is silenced from within the macro.
* The CountDown timer will now beep for only a few seconds when it times out. This is consistent with the performance of the Legacy units.
* You can now backspace when entering minutes or seconds in the countdown timer.
*  If you press O-CHORD B, then answer “No” to an incremental backup and “No” to deleting existing backup, the unit will now display the message “Transfer cancelled.”
* The problem of omitting the first Flash file in file navigation has been fixed.
* Deleting a file in Flash will now place you on the next Flash file, and not at the top of the file list.
* The names for upper ASCII characters are now spoken correctly.
* Under rare circumstances, the folder system could have become corrupted. This would result in "garbage" folder names, as well as in failures with WinDisk and with Compact Flash access. Now, if your folder names are corrupted, the unit will automatically rename them to Folder1, Folder2, etc., allowing both WinDisk and Compact Flash to work properly. The files in your folders will all be intact. Should you ever encounter such automatically generated folder names, rename the folders to their original names.