Scientific Calculator Keyboard Challenge

[Joe Horn]

(05-04-2014 10:30 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  Design the keyboard of a scientific calculator and post links to your designs as responses to this blog entry. Rules:

You have only 25 keys to work with. That's it.

Ok: How about having no permanent key map at all? Imagine this: clear keys which contain an LCD which can dynamically change what each key has "printed" on it. Instead of menus, the keys themselves would change as you press keys. I'm talking about raised, tactile-feedback keys; hardware keys which contain soft keys. (Not touch-screen stuff!)

If keyboards were dynamic like this, there would be no need to worry about the original key assignments, since the user could re-arrange everything in any way they like, with as many shift keys as they want, called whatever they want, wherever they want them. No cluttered keyboard; no wasted keys; hundreds of functions easily available in at most 2 keystrokes, and thousands in at most 3 keystrokes, all on a keyboard with only 25 keys.

The keys could be bigger too, since nothing needs to be printed on the land area around the keys, or on the front bezel of each key.

All of this was proposed in the PPC Journal over 30 years ago. I'm still hoping for it. It'll be expensive, but once you use it, static keyboards will feel like something from the stone age, and nobody will want to go back. <end of sales pitch>