Ricky Buchanan
My name is Ricky Buchanan, I’m 33 and I am bedridden with severe CFS/ME (or perhaps a primary mitochondrial disorder, the doctors are not sure). When I’m not writing ATMac I compose music, listen to audio books, do other disability advocacy, watch TV with my flatmate, and enjoy my cat.
I have been using computers since 1987, when the “state of the art” PC for my Dad’s business was a 286 with no hard drive, just two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives. At my school around that time, we had a very small storeroom with about four Apple IIe computers. There were no classes that used the computers but there was a bunch of us that hung around and taught each other Apple BASIC programming at lunch time and after school. I was the only girl in the bunch, if I remember correctly. I have loved computers ever since, and one of the majors in my degree was computer science.
My current setup is documented in depth on the Ricky’s Environment page. The short version is that it involves a Quad-Core Mac Pro named Myke. He has a 20 inch Apple Cinema Display and is generally tricked out as much as 2007 technology allowed, with 4gb of memory and 3 x 500gb hard drives. Myke was generously donated to me by the people at Lifeworks Photography and Next Byte Computing in Melbourne, Australia where I live.
Without assistive software and hardware I could not use this computer, much less run this blog and my other websites. I use - and also beta test - both VisioVoice and KeyStrokes from AssistiveWare as well as using their Infovox iVox voices for text-to-speech.
For hardware input I use a Cirque Smart Cat trackpad and XKeys Desktop device. For the occasional times when I can type myself, I have a Kinesis Advantage ergonomic keyboard which I use with the Dvorak keyboard layout.
- Ricky Buchanan, ATMac


