Landscape RPN calculator with alphanumeric display

[sa-penguin]

(03-19-2015 06:35 PM)MarkHaysHarris777 Wrote:  The 'important' piece of the project is NOT the interface. I'll restate it for the hard of seeing--- interfaces are a dime a dozen and NONE of them are going to calculate anything!

The interface should not be ignored, or tacked on as an afterthought, either.

At one extreme, I think of Steve Urkel's original Time Machine. from memory, it had very few buttons. If you wanted the year 1998, you used the "select" button to Move a cursor to Years, then pressed the "advance" button 1998 times (cue audience lughter)

You could also, in theory, use a Morse key and an LED to act as keyboard and display. Very small, but rather impractical.

In the real world, I know of system which beep whenever settings are changed. The exact same beep indicates errors, invalid data entered, or a hardware fault. I've experienced a fault reporting system that made a phone ring and deliver a recorded warning - every fifteen seconds. intermittent faults that flood error logs. User interfaces that have the most used opotions buried in five levels of submenu, while the main menu level is full of options lmost never used.

GOOD interfaces need to be customised for each individual. Computer graphics people love to design, and redesign, the graphic style, layout, and icons on web apps. For a calculator? I'd settle for a BASIC interface, void of more obvious flaws.

The classic example from here would be: arguing which side of a keyboard has the + - * / keys, and their order. Short of having a keyboard you can open up and re-arrange the keytops on, you will upset someone. However, forget an ENTER key and the protests would much louder.

In short, don't forget the interface. It's the part customers see, and use, every day.