In 1995, Aaron Beckwith was a retired businessman with a great life. Aaron and his wife Jane had moved from New Jersey to Boynton Beach, Florida where they could enjoy tennis and golf year round. Aaron also enjoyed marble sculpting and working with computers.

One day while taking a golf lesson, Aaron noticed that the ball looked pebble-sized when viewed through one eye. He called his brother, an optometrist, who advised Aaron to see an eye specialist right away. After a fifteen minute examination, he was told he had Macular Degeneration. Both Aaron and Jane were distraught by the diagnosis, as neither of them were familiar with this disease and how it would affect his life.

As a former business entrepreneur, Aaron chose to be solution oriented and turned to the Internet to learn more about Macular Degeneration. One day Aaron stumbled across an article in an AARP newsletter that mentioned a screen magnification product from Ai Squared called BigShot Magnifier. Immediately recognizing the benefits of screen magnification and the impact it could have on his ability to use a computer, Aaron came straight to Ai Squared and purchased BigShot. He could now use the computer without leaving nose prints on the screen.

Aaron realized that there must be others like himself who needed to know all the things he had learned about living with Macular Degeneration. That thought led Aaron and a friend, Jerry Rosenberg, to form the Macular Diseases Support Group which has grown to over 400 members. Now years later, Aaron and Jerry are still very active in the group.

Over the years, Aaron’s vision began to deteriorate, forcing him to migrate from BigShot, which has a maximum magnification of 2x, to the more powerful ZoomText. ZoomText provided the higher levels of magnification that Aaron needed along with a host of additional enhancements and features to support and satisfy his computer addiction. 

As Aaron’s vision continued to decline, he was encouraged by his vision counselors to abandon ZoomText and begin using a full-blown screen reader. Aaron was reluctant to do so because he absolutely loved seeing digital pictures of his grandchildren and photos on his favorite news websites. With just a screen reader, he would lose the ability to view all pictures and graphics. At this point, Aaron was running ZoomText version 8 at 10x magnification.

The release of ZoomText 9.0 was a timely solution. With the new xFont text magnification Aaron found that he could now see characters clearly at only 6x. Full of enthusiasm, Aaron explains, “When I started using 9.0, I couldn’t believe it. The text characters are so clear and legible, much easier for me to read.”

Aaron has found that his vision counselors were partially correct; he could read email and web pages much faster with a screen reader. However, he also found that ZoomText Magnifier/Reader provides all the screen and document reading tools that he needs. With ZoomText he could see and hear everything on his computer screen.  Aaron says he’s now hooked on ZoomText’s AppReader and new human-sounding NeoSpeech voices.

The onset of Macular Degeneration changed Aaron’s life and led him on a journey of discovery. These days, rather than worry about what he cannot do, Aaron thinks about “What can I do and how can I do it more easily.” Thankfully, he is willing to share his knowledge of Macular Degeneration, computers and assistive technology with others, who are all better off for their contact with Aaron Beckwith.