Tell me about the HP 67

[Paul Dale]

Indirectly I've been reminded of the reasons for placing the labels below the keys:

• In the beginning there were just consistency reasons - if you put one shifted function on one side of a key then put all of them at the same side. And the slanted fronts of the keys were exactly this: slanted fronts. So the h-shifted labels determined the location of the f- and g-shifted ones.
• Then there were space reasons - if you put labels below and above a key then they will interfere with the labels of next row of keys.
• And eventually there were the four hotkeys which had their default labels printed above them - a similar situation like on the hp67.