WP43 Alternative key layout --> C43

This area is for discussion about these families of custom high-end Scientific Calculator applications for SwissMicros devices.
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inautilus
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by inautilus »

Jaymos wrote:
Tue Aug 20, 2019 8:14 pm
The presumption is that we all like Layout 1, as we haven't heard complaints on Layout 1 for a while. The challenge is,

Is Layout 1 is the ultimate keyboard according to my goals? Or is the challenger more practical.

LEFT is LAYOUT 1

RIGHT is the challenger LAYOUT 1A

Thoughts? I quite like the challenger.

If the intent is to group as many like-minded FN's and Menus together ... as much as possible ... then it makes total sense to head in the direction of the challenger 1A. I think it very practical to send as many of the 'utility' fellows over to their corner, to hang out together. :D

Humour aside, while there may be those who observe this torment as nothing more than being mired in minutia ... it is not at all. Intelligent forethought is key to the efficient and smooth operation of any system worth its weight. Whole professions ... sciences ... have come into existence to address the interaction of man and machine. Take cockpit design in the aviation world where the avionics interface and human factor design are crucial fields of endeavor.

(At the risk of 'me too ...' ;) )
D A MacDonald
Mar Eng, Designer, CANADA
HP35, HP41C, HP28S, HP35s. PC: HP15C, Free42, WP31S, WP34S
(Operators Right in bold)
"It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change ..." Darwin
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inautilus
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by inautilus »

.
Last edited by inautilus on Wed Aug 21, 2019 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
D A MacDonald
Mar Eng, Designer, CANADA
HP35, HP41C, HP28S, HP35s. PC: HP15C, Free42, WP31S, WP34S
(Operators Right in bold)
"It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change ..." Darwin
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inautilus
Posts: 92
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Location: Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, CANADA

Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by inautilus »

inautilus wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 3:52 am
inautilus wrote:
Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:50 pm
Jaymos wrote:
Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:56 pm
I found an interesting phenomenon ...

Maybe it's me, pushing my Haas again, but maybe it is indeed more legible. I'd like more critical opinions on legibility, not beauty or origin.
There are indeed real limitations encountered ...


Making critical judgements, especially the important subtle ones, based on what you see projected back from a monitor (even a really good one) may not be as straight forward, reliable, and conclusive as you might expect … learned that one the hard way. ;) Viewing a projected image of an object at full scale … and then expecting to see and know all that is 'seeable’ as in the real world … is hopeful at best. Try it. Take a picture of your favorite HP calculator, view it 1:1 full scale on your monitor … against a dark background (important), and then reach for the same calculator you just took a picture of and lay it up against the screen alongside the image.

Look for accuracy and any discrepancy on:

- Colour
- Fine Line Detail
- Border Crispness
- Small Sized Font
- Overall Fidelity
_____________________________________________________
My take away ...
- The screen image is only an echo to the real thing
- Trust that print technology has come a long way (laser, etc)
D A MacDonald
Mar Eng, Designer, CANADA
HP35, HP41C, HP28S, HP35s. PC: HP15C, Free42, WP31S, WP34S
(Operators Right in bold)
"It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change ..." Darwin
Dani R.
Posts: 349
Joined: Fri May 05, 2017 10:23 pm

Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by Dani R. »

Jaymos wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 12:45 am
Dani R. wrote:
Tue Aug 20, 2019 1:30 pm
The letter on [ - ] on the DM42 is "-", as is the shifted letter on [ - ], for whatever reason, but not "_".
In alpha mode, the [-] produces a "_" underscore.
In alpha mode, the [+] produces a " " space.

The font they provide for the emulator does not have a suitable visible 'space' character like '⎵' and I do not want to change their fonts - it is a maintenance problem when they change something as well, so I changed the space to two dots. Hope it is intuitive enough.

I'm sure inautilus can make a '⎵' on the template.
You see me in complete amazement, I don't see what I do differently. On my DM42 I only get "-" (hyphen, minus) on [ - ] in alpha mode, no matter which mode [A]|[a]|[ ]. To get a "_" (underscore) I have to search for it deep in the menus (PUNC).
[ + ] is clear, there comes a " " (space), always hard to print.
C47(DM42) SN:00032 WP43 SN:00016
https://47calc.com
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Jaymos
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by Jaymos »

Dani R. wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 7:55 am
Jaymos wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 12:45 am
Dani R. wrote:
Tue Aug 20, 2019 1:30 pm
The letter on [ - ] on the DM42 is "-", as is the shifted letter on [ - ], for whatever reason, but not "_".
In alpha mode, the [-] produces a "_" underscore.
In alpha mode, the [+] produces a " " space.

The font they provide for the emulator does not have a suitable visible 'space' character like '⎵' and I do not want to change their fonts - it is a maintenance problem when they change something as well, so I changed the space to two dots. Hope it is intuitive enough.

I'm sure inautilus can make a '⎵' on the template.
You see me in complete amazement, I don't see what I do differently. On my DM42 I only get "-" (hyphen, minus) on [ - ] in alpha mode, no matter which mode [A]|[a]|[ ]. To get a "_" (underscore) I have to search for it deep in the menus (PUNC).
[ + ] is clear, there comes a " " (space), always hard to print.
I did not check what the original DM42 does. When I allocated the text keys in the 43C, I used the DM42 key label only to determine that [-] must produce a underscore. It makes sense because f[-] should produce hyphen.

I will first have to flash it to 3.15 but I must download that, to check. It was just too much trouble. I have only WP43C L2 test firmware in my DM42 ;-)

The question is what do we want. I think we want [-] to produce underscore because f[-] already produces hyphen.

(There also is a bug, but that is another matter, [-] does a subtract now, but it is on my list to be fixed).
Jaco Mostert
Elec Eng, South Africa
https://47calc.com C47 (s/n 03818 & 06199), WP43 (0015). In box: HP42S, HP32Sii, WP34S&C, HP28C, HP35s, EL-506P, EL-W506, PB700; ex: FX702P, 11C, HP67 & HP85; iOS: 42s Byron, Free42+, WP31S/34S, HCalc.
Dani R.
Posts: 349
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by Dani R. »

Jaymos wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 8:26 am
Dani R. wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 7:55 am
Jaymos wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 12:45 am

In alpha mode, the [-] produces a "_" underscore.
In alpha mode, the [+] produces a " " space.
On my DM42 I only get "-" (hyphen, minus) on [ - ] in alpha mode, no matter which mode [A]|[a]|[ ].
I did not check what the original DM42 does...

The question is what do we want. I think we want [-] to produce underscore because f[-] already produces hyphen.
Yeah, right, of course, this improvement doesn't bother.

Then I withdraw my objection, there will be a solution for the different representation of underscore and space.
C47(DM42) SN:00032 WP43 SN:00016
https://47calc.com
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inautilus
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by inautilus »

Switched the font over to the Neue Haas Grotesk Bold, and bumped up the size by 15%. I have to say, it was a little disappointing ... the calculator started looking like a Christmas tree … no point in going any further here. Open the link below and have a look. It’s pretty obvious that any potential improvement is going to be the result of micro adjustments. Will have to play with it over the next few days to bring things back in line. I’ll get back to you when I feel I have something worthwhile. In the meantime, I was serious with what I suggested in my previous post, it would be great if you might get a couple of photo prints made to view and assess. I would do it myself but … since it is you who will ultimately be signing off on this then … it’s really you who ultimately needs to know.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PvRQI ... YBCLqsibHM

In the beginning, the font wasn't really that far off where it needed to be ... it should be no problem.
D A MacDonald
Mar Eng, Designer, CANADA
HP35, HP41C, HP28S, HP35s. PC: HP15C, Free42, WP31S, WP34S
(Operators Right in bold)
"It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change ..." Darwin
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Jaymos
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by Jaymos »

inautilus wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 10:17 am
Switched the font over to the Neue Haas Grotesk Bold, and bumped up the size by 15%. I have to say, it was a little disappointing ... the calculator started looking like a Christmas tree … no point in going any further here. Open the link below and have a look. It’s pretty obvious that any potential improvement is going to be the result of micro adjustments. Will have to play with it over the next few days to bring things back in line. I’ll get back to you when I feel I have something worthwhile. In the meantime, I was serious with what I suggested in my previous post, it would be great if you might get a couple of photo prints made to view and assess. I would do it myself but … since it is you who will ultimately be signing off on this then … it’s really you who ultimately needs to know.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PvRQI ... YBCLqsibHM

In the beginning, the font wasn't really that far off where it needed to be ... it should be no problem.

I will have photos printed of the last ones you did. It will have to wait, I am prepping for 2 day out of town trip tomorrow.

Re font: it is essential to compress it, otherwise it can never fit. It must have a tall and narrow letter. Is it possible to compress the letters inside Acad? Can you adjust the width to 0.5? I just googled and read that TTF in Autocad cannot be adjusted to width lower than 1.0 without quality loss. Bad. Bad news if true. http://tiny.cc/rs4hbz. The advice on this site for Autocad is to always use the font normally not adjusted.

Is the solution maybe then to make a font of the used letters? If it must, I can look at how to do that.

Can you please upload to your Google a pdf of the ‘Christmas tree’. Also the finals so I can best have photos printed.
Jaco Mostert
Elec Eng, South Africa
https://47calc.com C47 (s/n 03818 & 06199), WP43 (0015). In box: HP42S, HP32Sii, WP34S&C, HP28C, HP35s, EL-506P, EL-W506, PB700; ex: FX702P, 11C, HP67 & HP85; iOS: 42s Byron, Free42+, WP31S/34S, HCalc.
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Jaymos
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by Jaymos »

Jaymos wrote:
Wed Aug 21, 2019 11:06 am
Is the solution maybe then to make a font of the used letters? If it must, I can look at how to do that.
I sent you a font that I compressed by 50%. Maybe this works.
Capture.PNG
Capture.PNG (10.08 KiB) Viewed 3490 times
Jaco Mostert
Elec Eng, South Africa
https://47calc.com C47 (s/n 03818 & 06199), WP43 (0015). In box: HP42S, HP32Sii, WP34S&C, HP28C, HP35s, EL-506P, EL-W506, PB700; ex: FX702P, 11C, HP67 & HP85; iOS: 42s Byron, Free42+, WP31S/34S, HCalc.
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inautilus
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Re: 43S Alternative key layout --> WP43C

Post by inautilus »

No need for concern. Will fill you in on the solution(s) in a few hours or so when freed up ...
I've got this :)
D A MacDonald
Mar Eng, Designer, CANADA
HP35, HP41C, HP28S, HP35s. PC: HP15C, Free42, WP31S, WP34S
(Operators Right in bold)
"It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change ..." Darwin
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