Multiline HP15C

[Fungus]

(06-12-2018 01:48 PM)burkhard Wrote:  Just tossing in that the design for the multi-line 15 is gorgeous. My 15C got me through engineering school back in the 80s and was/is a great carry-around calculator. Back in the day, I was *really* fast with it... a bit out of practice now :-)

The landscape format is quite dear to me.

Yep. My main lust for these calculators is the size/shape/format. Landscape mode is much more elegant then portrait mode and two thumb typing is much faster.

Plus: These things are really small. They fit in a pocket as easily as most four-function calculators!

HP totally nailed it with the basic design and build quality of these calculators, IMHO.

The main justification for doing this (IMHO) would be to keep that desirability but to take it to the next level. I don't think there's many HP 11C/15C owners out there who can look at that image without thinking, "Want!"

Swiss Micros already make landscape format calculators, they already make multi-line calculators, they already work with the emulators, they could totally make this happen...

(06-12-2018 01:48 PM)burkhard Wrote:  I see other features that would make great additions to the 15C as well: support for multiple bases, a catalog of functions, an alpha register, &c. Wow.

To add new features would need a complete new firmware (which isn't a showstopper). I can think of a few things that could be taken away and a few things I'd like to add, but that's a whole other thread.

(eg. Who does statistical calculations on a calculator in the days of Excel? Who's going to be typing in matrices and complex numbers...? I'd swap those functions for number bases if I could)

Different firmwares and keyboard templates would be phase 2.