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HP Forum Archive 20

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HP41 emaluation
Message #1 Posted by Eric Foers on 7 Jan 2012, 2:55 p.m.

I have just had a thought on the practical use of HP41 emaluators. What I find 'difficult' (for want of a better word) about the PC versions, is that you either have to use the mouse, or you have limited keyboard facilities.

This could be overcome by someone building a USB keypad with the 41's keys which interacts with the emulation software. I am not able to do so myself, but would glady pay for one (& suspect that may of us who would like to see the 41 revived would also), and imagine that there are one or two specialists who subscribe to this site who could.

There could be additional facilities on such a keypad, like a activation switch & memory on which to store programs, which would then be portable between PC's.

Edited: 7 Jan 2012, 2:56 p.m.

      
Re: HP41 emaluation
Message #2 Posted by Eric v d Wateren on 8 Jan 2012, 7:07 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Eric Foers

I very much agree with your thought, and had similar ideas for some time... unfortunately without the technical skills to realise them. I'd love to have a small Bluetooth connected HP41 keyboard that could be used to interact with PC, Mac or iPod/iPad based emulators!

In such a configuration one would combine all the power, storage- and extended display capabilities of the emulator device with the (in my opinion) never surpassed tactile quality of the physical HP41 keyboard. It would be hard to beat this combination!

The same keyboard could also be usable for data entry into other applications (such as spreadsheets). As an iMac user I find the Apple cordless keyboard a serious compromise when entering large amounts of numeric data and I often wondered how useful it would to be abke to simply connect a nice HP41-type keyboard.


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