WP43 News

This area is for discussion about these families of custom high-end Scientific Calculator applications for SwissMicros devices.
H2X
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Re: 43S News

Post by H2X »

Walter wrote:
Sat Feb 22, 2020 12:36 pm
You are all three right, in principle. Will check the details.
Thanks! :-)
What is the metric tensor in imperial units?
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Jaymos wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 4:32 pm
Your graphic choices are yours and my template will look different.
Certainly. Enjoy!
Jaymos wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:07 pm
I think lg and ln are the only glyphs that show the very curly serifs. IMO, it stands out in a way that it draws attention to it, in the wrong way. I am not criticising a cursive font, but I think these L’s need their protrusions clipped by maybe 30%.
Took some time to find a proper font for these. Scaling doesn't help here. I'll leave them the way they are.
Jaymos wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:07 pm
I think the spaces between golds and blues are a bit too recipe like...
Nothing against recipes. Space for more artistics isn't everywhere.
Jaymos wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:07 pm
All the lower case yellow and blue letters, as well as the blue ⍺, √x, and 𝝿 appear a lot smaller than the upper case and digits (like 10). The small x exponent at 10^x is even smaller.
They may appear so. Applied some small corrections. But please remember the picture is rastered - the original print may look different.
Jaymos wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:07 pm
Square root x: In the font tool that I think you use to maintain the calculator fonts (Fontcreator), there is a way to import a scanned or otherwise created bitmap and convert that to a vector font. You could try make a sqrtx glyph and edit it in Fontcreator to have a vector glyph, then you won’t have to manually insert a line.
There is no manually inserted line.
Dani R. wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:25 pm
Is it really intended that the keys will increase in width and especially in height in the dimensions (compared to the DM42) as the last PNG suggests?
No it is not. Official dimensions of the keys are missing so I took the holes of the overlay (some of your later postings turned moot this way since you proceded without waiting for response).

BTW, Michael continues claiming they do series production without tolerances (I learn something new here sometimes). I'm most willing to audit that revolutionary breakthrough method (Am.: technology) as soon as the corona virus has vanished from that area. Who wants to join? 8-)
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
rprosperi
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Re: 43S News

Post by rprosperi »

Walter wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 11:33 am
If anyone has any objection to this, may they speak now or be silent forever. :!: 8-)
Overall, this layout is very satisfying and I think could become comfortable fairly quickly. Still, here are some nits to whine about:

I don't like the lower case "l" in the [ln] and [g][lg] labels, but I'm fairly sure these were not casual choices and am certain no amount of discussion will change that. Of course the x, y, a b/c, d.ms, .d and e are also lower case, but I am used to those from 40 years of HP keyboard labels, so they feel natural.

Is the 'x' in the absolute value (shift-[CC]) label the same font/size/italics as the x used in other places? It appears to be different, but it could be because this is the only yellow x.

I think including the Greek labels unnecessarily crowds the already busy keyboard, but I know most physicists insist on using these as often as they can if for no other reason than it often confuses other mere mortals. The assignment of these Greek characters to similar looking Arabic letters makes good sense, but I see no need to paint them on the bezel. How often are these actually used, by other than a tiny percentage of users?

This next one is probably an old issue, and if so, sorry for not remembering, but even if so, I think it may be worth revisiting:

Why are the Alpha letters in the 4th row shifted one character to the right to make room for the ":" character? Doing so makes the entire Alpha layout skewed unevenly for this row and it feels very unbalanced and awkward.

Obviously you have assigned the ":" character to the [/] key for some logical reason, but whatever that reason is, IMHO it cannot outweigh the unbalanced nature of the proposed Alpha layout, and it certainly will contribute to some difficulty acquiring some muscle memory learning the Alpha keyboard. It seems it would make far more sense to shift N, O, P and Q one key to the left and assign ":" to the [XEQ] key.
--bob p

DM42: β00071 & 00282, DM41X: β00071 & 00656, DM10L: 071/100
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Thanks for your remarks, Bob.
rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 am
I don't like the lower case "l" in the [ln] and [g][lg] labels, but I'm fairly sure these were not casual choices and am certain no amount of discussion will change that. Of course the x, y, a b/c, d.ms, .d and e are also lower case, but I am used to those from 40 years of HP keyboard labels, so they feel natural.
AFAIK, everyone writes ln in math, noone LN - so you should ask why calculator labels deviate. Same with lg. (EDIT: Look at the 9100A, please. 8-))
rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 am
Is the 'x' in the absolute value (shift-[CC]) label the same font/size/italics as the x used in other places? It appears to be different, but it could be because this is the only yellow x.
Yes, it is. And there's a second golden x in x! (pun intended ;) though - alas - destroyed by this remark :( ). You may be another victim of the raster display, however.
rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 am
I think including the Greek labels unnecessarily crowds the already busy keyboard, but I know most physicists insist on using these as often as they can if for no other reason than it often confuses other mere mortals. The assignment of these Greek characters to similar looking Arabic letters makes good sense, but I see no need to paint them on the bezel. How often are these actually used, by other than a tiny percentage of users?
There may be Arabic digits but no such letters on my layout. :P And mathematicians have weirder stuff in their boxes than mere Greek letters but I agree physicists are close. Anyway, only 3 out of 24 Greek letters show up on the keyboard; and reason for these is given in the Owner's Manual.
rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 am
Why are the Alpha letters in the 4th row shifted one character to the right to make room for the ":" character? Doing so makes the entire Alpha layout skewed unevenly for this row and it feels very unbalanced and awkward.

Obviously you have assigned the ":" character to the [/] key for some logical reason, but whatever that reason is, IMHO it cannot outweigh the unbalanced nature of the proposed Alpha layout, and it certainly will contribute to some difficulty acquiring some muscle memory learning the Alpha keyboard. It seems it would make far more sense to shift N, O, P and Q one key to the left and assign ":" to the [XEQ] key.
Hmmh. You didn't notice Q matching XEQ, did you? And ":" matching "/" (since a significant fraction of world population uses ":" for division)?
BTW, my muscle memory still aches when my eyes see letters sorted alphabetically on a keyboard but I'll get over it although it continues feeling ... awkward (or call it unbalanced). I'm confident you'll get over it as well.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
H2X
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Re: 43S News

Post by H2X »

Well, I guess the most valuable feedback that can be had from this forum is this:

Whatever you do, don't give those zero tolerance production guys that raster image... 8-)
What is the metric tensor in imperial units?
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

H2X wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 4:33 pm
Whatever you do, don't give those zero tolerance production guys that raster image... 8-)
:lol: No, they'll get a vector graphic file. 8-)
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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Re: 43S News

Post by H2X »

Walter wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 4:44 pm
:lol: No, they'll get a vector graphic file. 8-)
Good! 8-)

But since a few of the more graphically savvy members have been victimized by it already, I am a bit curious why you didn't share the vector file in the first place.

I assume size was the reason - but if that was the case, maybe you could share it on Gitlab? It would be interesting to see the real thing.
What is the metric tensor in imperial units?
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

H2X wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:21 pm
... I am a bit curious why you didn't share the vector file in the first place.

I assume size was the reason - but if that was the case, maybe you could share it on Gitlab? It would be interesting to see the real thing.
Actually two reasons:
  1. All of us use raster displays nowadays (vector displays were present decades ago but have vanished - that's what I observed at least). Thus, the appearance of small letters depends on magnification - something you won't believe first hand but becomes obvious quite soon when you experiment a bit. The only easy way to freeze a particular impression is by screenshot AFAIK. That's what I did. And then size matters.
  2. The vector file doesn't exist yet. It will be generated when everything is fixed (or frozen).
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
rprosperi
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Re: 43S News

Post by rprosperi »

Walter wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:18 am
Thanks for your remarks, Bob.

[snip]
rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 am
Why are the Alpha letters in the 4th row shifted one character to the right to make room for the ":" character? Doing so makes the entire Alpha layout skewed unevenly for this row and it feels very unbalanced and awkward.

Obviously you have assigned the ":" character to the [/] key for some logical reason, but whatever that reason is, IMHO it cannot outweigh the unbalanced nature of the proposed Alpha layout, and it certainly will contribute to some difficulty acquiring some muscle memory learning the Alpha keyboard. It seems it would make far more sense to shift N, O, P and Q one key to the left and assign ":" to the [XEQ] key.
Hmmh. You didn't notice Q matching XEQ, did you? And ":" matching "/" (since a significant fraction of world population uses ":" for division)?
BTW, my muscle memory still aches when my eyes see letters sorted alphabetically on a keyboard but I'll get over it although it continues feeling ... awkward (or call it unbalanced). I'm confident you'll get over it as well.
Thanks for your explanations and comments Walter.

First, I did like the pun, and it wasn't ruined, at least for me. :)

"Arabic digits"!? What the ^%&(* was I thinking... obviously up too late... I will look in the manual why the 3 retained Greek symbols deserve special attention, and should have done so when I noticed most of the other Greek characters are not shown.

Regarding the 4th row of Alpha characters: after much studying before sending my comments, I did in fact eventually see the Q/XEQ and "/" / ":" alignments, but thought there must have been some more compelling functional reason for disturbing the otherwise consistent and expected Alpha layout.

Do you really think the mnemonic association of those 2 pairs of characters really outweighs the more natural layout if shifted back to NOPQ:? When in Alpha mode I don't think people are thinking about other functional associations, but are more focused on just spelling, and will naturally expect that N follows M, etc.

Do you think the community agrees and has this come up for discussion since it changed to this (seems like middle 2019) perhaps I missed that at the time? As these updates are buried in the 60+ page 43S status thread, I think a lot of readers don't follow the issues closely, fearing they are far behind...

I get that you've put this our for comment here, and like you I am confused/disappointed that there has been so little feedback, except by the 43C UI team.

What do other people think about the proposed 43S Alpha layout???

Does the proposed un-natural layout make sense in order to have (Q and XEQ) and ("/" and ":") align, or

does it make more sense to have that row in the otherwise expected NOPQ: order?

I'm not rabble-rousing here, I just think this change has slipped under the radar and needs to be assessed and concurred-with before you should conclude it's final.

Thanks for listening.
--bob p

DM42: β00071 & 00282, DM41X: β00071 & 00656, DM10L: 071/100
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:07 pm
Walter wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:18 am
rprosperi wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 am
Why are the Alpha letters in the 4th row shifted one character to the right to make room for the ":" character? Doing so makes the entire Alpha layout skewed unevenly for this row and it feels very unbalanced and awkward.

Obviously you have assigned the ":" character to the [/] key for some logical reason, but whatever that reason is, IMHO it cannot outweigh the unbalanced nature of the proposed Alpha layout, and it certainly will contribute to some difficulty acquiring some muscle memory learning the Alpha keyboard. It seems it would make far more sense to shift N, O, P and Q one key to the left and assign ":" to the [XEQ] key.
Hmmh. You didn't notice Q matching XEQ, did you? And ":" matching "/" (since a significant fraction of world population uses ":" for division)?
BTW, my muscle memory still aches when my eyes see letters sorted alphabetically on a keyboard but I'll get over it although it continues feeling ... awkward (or call it unbalanced). I'm confident you'll get over it as well.
...
Do you really think the mnemonic association of those 2 pairs of characters really outweighs the more natural layout if shifted back to NOPQ:? When in Alpha mode I don't think people are thinking about other functional associations, but are more focused on just spelling, and will naturally expect that N follows M, etc.

Do you think the community agrees and has this come up for discussion since it changed to this (seems like middle 2019) perhaps I missed that at the time? As these updates are buried in the 60+ page 43S status thread, I think a lot of readers don't follow the issues closely, fearing they are far behind...
...
Does the proposed un-natural layout make sense in order to have (Q and XEQ) and ("/" and ":") align, or

does it make more sense to have that row in the otherwise expected NOPQ: order?
Bob, I can follow most of your thoughts but your last sentence here is mere politics ("Caesar is a honorable man"). Whether something looks natural or less is in the eye of the observer. You may have noticed that the assignment of letters swings down (note there's no letter assigned to ENTER as there's none at [/]) so one may see as well a steady placement of letters instead of something un-natural.

IIRC, I removed a letter from [/] some months ago to reach the match of Q and XEQ (I do like such matches, cf. S, T, U, and X). I don't remember whether I advertised this move explicitly (and it's close to midnight here so I won't look it up). Anyway, about half a year since this move should be sufficient for everybody interested in the 43S to notice it either here or in the manuals and - if he doesn't like it - to speak up. This project is really not known for high speed so I won't do anything to decelerate it further. But admittedly even snails are too fast for some animals...

Let's see who else has an opinion in this matter.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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