HP 48G - what next?

[Joe Horn]

(02-24-2019 04:38 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder although I have a hard time believing *anyone* would think the HP 33Ss is nice looking

Hmmm... The 33S was the closest that HP ever got to my ideal keyboard layout. Before you consign me to the loony bin for saying that, please let me explain. I have always thought that a rectangular grid of keys is the least *efficient* layout for anybody who has to actually USE a keyboard. But almost all keyboards are exactly that: a rectangular grid. It's stupid, because the desired key is buried in a forest of similar-looking keys. The RIGHT way to do it (in my famously humble opinion) would be to have all the keys look as different from each other as possible, with related keys gathered in groups that look different from all the other groups. The placement and size and color and shape of the keys would look (and be) quite chaotic. Yes, it would look hilariously awful at first to old farts whose human inertia is too great to overcome ("Nobody has ever done it that way before, therefore it must be awful!"), but newcomers would find it so easy to use (you can find any key easily and quickly using even peripheral vision, because they look so different from each other) that they would find our rectangular grid keyboards hilariously old-fashioned and thankfully obsolete. The 33S was the farthest HP ever ventured from a boring old rectangular grid, and that's why I like it.