Pretty Device with a Good Design Message #29 Posted by Veli-Pekka Nousiainen on 6 June 2004, 5:27 p.m., in response to message #27 by Jean-Yves Avenard
Jean-Yves Avenard aka Gherkin wrote:
" if you have a better solution, please feel free to submit it!"
I guess it's too late to persuade you to change the design at this point.
If do, then I suggest the following for the next generation of Hydrix calculatrice:
1) Put a second row of function keys below the LCD and a second menu line in the display.
This will help if/when you deside to do a vertical model similar to the HP-200LX,
because you can then easily have F1...F12
and that is needed with many terminal programs, etc.
2) Use a flip-up LCD - light and thin - over the keyboard
That design would make the device even smaller and
would allow many other things to be done easier
(sled, batteries, SDIO card location, etc.)
It would be also quite easy to use a color screen later on and
any repairs to the LCD would be much easier.
3) SOFTWARE:
The key assignment routine should use strings for key locations
so that if you will have a different layout later
the programs will still function without a rewrite.
KEY$ or KEYSTRING
=> "A"..."Z", "SPACE", "ENTER", "0"..."9",
The shift keys and cursor keys might be as follows:
"ALPHA", "LS", "RS", "ON" and "UP", "DOWN", LEFT", "RIGHT"
# VPNh
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