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TravisE · (This post was last modified: 03-28-2019 01:50 AM by TravisE.)

(03-24-2019 12:05 AM)DavidM Wrote:
(03-23-2019 09:52 AM)Lode Wrote: 2. In RPN mode, you are required to hold down shift and F keys at the same time to use the graph functions rather than first shift then F key. Why is this, and why only in RPN? It's a bit of an unintuitive and painful key combination to execute.

I don't possess any inside documentation about this, but I suspect that it stems from previous precedents that were already set for left- and right-shifted F1-F6 keys in RPN mode. Specifically, left-shift F1 (or F2, F3...) will store whatever is in stack level 1 into the global variable whose name appears above that key in the main menu. Similarly, right-shift F1 (etc.) will recall the contents of the named global variable designated by that key to the stack. Since those functions were already defined, shift-hold functions were probably used as an alternative when those graphic functions were added.

In fact, there are several other keys that change their behavior depending on whether you press and release the shift key or keep it held down while pressing the other key. It can take some getting used to, and the key labels certainly don't make this behavior very clear, but it does allow more features to be accessed (or assigned by the user) on the keyboard since it doubles the effective number of shift keys available.