(MONEY Magazine) – WHEN FAILING HEALTH forced journalist I.F. Stone, 80, to stop publication of his feisty political newsletter 17 years ago, he turned to a lifelong dream: He taught himself classical Greek so he'd be able to read Plato in the original. This led him gradually to an idea for a book about the trial of Socrates. By then, however, Stone's eyesight had deteriorated so badly that he couldn't see well enough to use a typewriter or ordinary personal computer. Fortunately, there was a high-tech solution. Stone wrote The Trial of Socrates (Little Brown, $18.95), a current bestseller, on an Apple Macintosh, whose MacWrite word-processing software provides big type -- up to a third of an inch high, compared with the usual one-eighth to one-sixth. The National Association for the Visually Handicapped, an advocacy group, recommends these additional high-tech helpers: -- Closed-circuit TVs ($2,600 to $3,500) made by VTEK (213-452-5966) and Telesensory Systems (415-960-0960) that enlarge text size on a computer screen up to 60 times. -- Telesensory Systems also makes the Vista System, a screen-and-software package ($1,995) that enlarges type three to 16 times and is compatible with IBM PCs.