I am temporarily borrowing a Mantis Q40 from a friend to see about getting one for myself. I find that everything works as expected, except for the fact that the Mantis does not appear as a drive in Finder when it is plugged in. This is despite finding the correct driver from APH and installing it. The drive appears in my finder, but shows up as empty despite there being files on the Mantis that I would like to transfer to my Mac.
Is there something I am doing wrong or is this not meant to work like this? This would highly impact on my decision as to what display I attempt to get permanently as transferring files is something I will need to do regularly.
Hopefully there is just something small or easy that I have missed, which I often find. If anyone has any advice I would be grateful.
Kind Regards
By bexgray01, 7 January, 2024
Forum
Braille on Apple Products
Comments
sd card
Not sure about the driver, haven't hooked mine up to a Mac for anything but just beign a keyboard/display. But worse comes to worst you can always just use the SD card slot on the back to transfer files.
I don't have an SD card reader on my Mac
I would do this but my Mac is one of the USB C only ones and I don't have access to an SD card or reader sorry.
Have you installed Fuse?
I had to install Mac OS Fusion. I believe you can learn more about this on the Humanware website. I don't have a Mac to test with at the moment, and I did this a couple of years ago, so maybe something has changed? Your best bet may be to get a USB-C SD Card reader if you don't feel like messing with Fuse.
Yes I initially installed MacFUSE and it still didn't work
I initially installed MacFUSE through the GitHub link in the read me txt, and the drive appears when I plug the mantis in, but it appears as empty despite there being files on the mantis. I have also tried uninstalling and re installing both the driver and Mac fuse but I am still having no success. I followed all the instructions to change the security settings in the recovery assistant and for some reason it still doesn't work.
I have also tried using a USB drive in the port of the mantis but it won't read. I looked into getting a SD card reader but it's just financially out of reach at the moment because here the cheapest is $50+.
I'm sorry that neither of your suggestions have worked so far, but thank you for trying anyway. This trial period is making me unsure if the Mantis is the correct display for me because file transfer needs to be an easy process for my situation.
Kind Regards
it just magically started working
so of course as soon as I ask for help it magically starts working without me having changed anything *eye roll* but thank you both for your help and advice, I do really appreciate it Thanks
Well it was working
it was working but now it isn't again which makes me think that it might be the cable I am using so I'm going to try get another one today and see if that helps
I'm glad it's working…
I'm glad it's working somewhat and I hope the new cable fixes the issue entirely. If file transfer is more important to your use case than having a QWERTY keyboard, this may not be the best option. It's sadly a common issue with braille and the Mac. There are often less features available for the Mac than Windows. Just FYI, if you decided to go the Brailliant BIX route, you will encounter the same challenge. I hope it works out for you with Fuse!
Unfortunately it is now not working at all
unfortunately it seems to have only worked the once and no matter what I have tried I am unable to replicate it. I will be returning the display to my friend tomorrow as it needs to be sent off to have a dot replaced (I knew about this issue before) and I might see if I can get it to connect once it has been repaired because this may be part of the issue, although she has had no problems with it connecting in the past, but she uses windows. I'm unsure if I want to proceed with getting any braille display at all because I have heard about so many bugs with them and Mac devices that I am unsure if it will be worth it or if I will be constantly running into problems. I appreciate all your help though and I'm sorry that it hasn't fixed
I'm not familiar with the…
I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of braille displays, so sorry if this seems like a basic question.
This forum topic is about transferring data to and from braille displays, which is something I'm curious about. My understanding was that they mainly help you read braille text on devices, so I'm wondering how this data transfer works. What kinds of data can braille displays handle?
Regards,
Sadik