HP 50g -- too shifty?

[TravisE]

Since I'm a relative newcomer to the HP calculator scene, the 50g was my first HP, and I don't really have the 48g experience as a reference point to complain about the 50g's key layout. Looking at it, though, it does seem like a lot of common “advanced” functions were more accessible back then. However, the redefinable keyboard largely makes up for that, and, coming from the much less flexible TI calculators, I was grateful for the ability to simply fix whatever parts of the keyboard I didn't like myself. It's a bit unfortunate that getting the full flexibility of this system requires some SysRPL coding knowledge (well, it's hard for me to complain now that I'm familiar with it, but there is the learning curve and the risk of crashing the system—it isn't for everybody) and that it's not (easily, at least?) possible to make one's key bindings work quite everywhere (in particular, the non-VISIT/EDIT stack entry prompt and in input forms), but overall it's a very worthwhile feature.

(One thing that kind of bothered me after reading Wickes' Insights books is that there was once a handy way to remember left-shift vs. right-shift VAR softkeys: It was similar to how the RCL and STO shift functions were arranged. They really messed that up on the 50g, haha.)

I also felt a little uncomfortable with there being a difference between shift vs. shift-hold keys at first, but I eventually got used to it and have to admit that it's a convenient way to squeeze even more personalized functions into the keyboard. There are the third-party tools that let you add even more combinations (long-press, etc.), but I decided not to use them because, frankly, it's complicated enough as it is. I eventually realized that beyond a few dozen custom keys or so, I reach a point of diminishing returns and have enough trouble remembering all my assignments that it's typically faster simply to alpha-spell the rest of my frequently-used commands than to try to remember or look up what keys I put them on, even if it does take a few more keystrokes to do so. It's kind of a shame the 50g did away with keyboard templates (I'd rather not physically modify the keyboard, especially in a way I can't change if I ever change my mind).