What would your ideal HP calc look like now?

[Jake Schwartz]

When those first Pioneers (27S and 17B) came out in early 1988 and were followed relatively quickly by an "onslaught" of 8 more machines over the next two years, I was disappointed that they had smoothed out the keys to no-longer allow function names on the key fronts. This forced an increase of "clutter" above the keys for those two-shift machines, the 20S, 21S and 32SII; and that arrangement was maintained in the 48/49/50. I asked Bill Wickes about it at the time and he indicated that some users had actually complained that the keys with the sharp edges hurt their fingers after a lot of use, which influenced them to smooth them out. (To each his own, I suppose...) It was a relief to me when the key-front functionality returned with the 10BII, 17BII+, the 35S, the 20b/30b, 39gII and more recently with the Prime.

Jake