What is that annunciator? (33S)

[Tizedes Csaba]

Hi,

who knows, what's that ann. on the 33S's LCD, under the Left-Shift ann., near '0.5...' on www.hpcalc.org?

Csaba

[Ed Look]

Uh, whatever it is, it looks like it has a cable sticking out of it. Perhaps it is a connection (to PC or another calculator) icon?

[Ben Salinas]

While looking at the tiny simple on the LCD screen, I compared it to that of the 32sii, and realized that the only thing that the 32sii's screen has that the 33s doesnt have is all the little arrows pointing down (for selecting stuff in menus). My question is this: Although there are many of the functions directly on the keybaoard of the 33s (such as Cnr, and Pnr), there still will need to be menus (such as for linear regression), so how will these menues be navigated? The 32sii has "softkeys", however it does not look like the 33s has those (judging by the lack of little arrows). I truly hope that you will not have a menu to scroll through (such as on many of the TI scientific calculators), because I can get used to a weirdly arranged keyboard, but if you have to scroll through 4 options to get to some of the features... Just think of the number of keystrokes. On the 32sii, to get 'r' (provided the Stat data is inputted) you need 3 keystrokes (right shift, L.R., y^x). It is possible that on the 33s, it would be 8 keystrokes. IMHO, that takes the advantage out of the scientific calculator (namely, speed)
-Ben Salinas

[Tizedes Csaba]

On the right side of LCD it had two arrows (up/down), and had two arrows for left and right. I try zooming and sharping the pic (with ACDSee) it looks like letter 'B', but not really 'B'.

I don't know, what's that. (And I don't want guessing...)

Csaba

[Tizedes Csaba]

Hmm... Under the LCD, that big empty place look like an four-direction 'joystick' and the four direction is marked with lines.

I'm guessing very hard now... :)

Csaba

[Brandon Del Bel]

it looks like a lock to me

[Paul Brogger]

In the early-release .PDF product summary, 2nd page, top of middle column under "edit" it says "4-arrow key in menu:" and goes on to (sort of) explain (clumsily) how the "up arrow" and "down arrow" actions work.

I've assumed that the large center space between "ALG/SOLVE" and "MODES/DISP" is in fact the "4-arrow key". Note that there aren't up and down arrows, as such, anywhere on the keyboard, and the "up diode" and "down diode" (left-shifted 7 & 8) functions are probably "top of list" and "bottom of list" jumps. (Those are alluded to in the .PDF text as well.)

So, Ben, I'm sure you're on to something. They increased the number of keys by 6-10 (depending on how you count 'em), sprayed every function they could think of onto the keyboard, and short of adding a third shift key, needed to make menus work somehow (given the design all but precludes the use of soft keys). So you get cursor-navigated lists.

[JaSon]

looks like a printer to me