I've followed with interest the comments in this forum concerning the new 30b. (I don't yet have one.) The consensus appears to be that it is a very good calculator but with a few annoyances. For example:
- Many functions are buried in menus rather than being visible on the keypad;
- The STO key is not a primary key;
- The shift key is not more centrally located (Gene Wright); and
- 1/x and y^x are not primary keys (bink).
I envisage that a 30bII would address them all these. The question is how?
I'm interested to find out what others think a 30bII might look like. In contemplating this, consider it to be a refresh of the 30b rather than a complete redesign, so that its functionality remains essentially the same.
To get things started, I've taken a hypothetical keypad for the 20b from a previous post and adapted it for the 30b. I think I've addressed all the annoyances listed above by introducing a second shift key.
P/YR |IRR| |NPV| |Bond| |Option| |CshFl|
N I/YR PV PMT FV UP
xP/YR |IConv| |BrkEv| |Amort| |Depr| |Mode|x^2 e^x |%calc| |Data|
f g 1/x y^x % DOWN
sqrt LN LOG |Memory|R/S INS Beg |Math| |Stats|
INPUT ( ) EEX +/-
PRGM DEL End |Date| ABSISG ?< ?= ?> F
STO 7 8 9 /
DSE ?>= ?!= ?<= INV FSOLVE GOTO GOTOT GOTOF chi2
RCL 4 5 6 *
ANS ! nCr nPr INV chi2CALL LBL RETURN t
<- 1 2 3 -
|Reset| RND RAND pi INV tMSG STOP DISP n
ON/CE 0 . = +
OFF IP FP (SHOW) INV n
Notes
- Menus are identified by vertical lines ||.
- Option is just a different name for the Black S menu.
- UP and DOWN represent the up and down arrows, which are now located at the top right of the keypad (cf. 35s and 50g).
- INS and DEL and located next to INPUT because they are all used for entering data in lists.
- STO and RCL are now located at the bottom left of the keypad (cf. TI BA II Plus).
- !, nCr, and nPr are all based on factorials, so they are grouped together.
- Back space and CE both delete, so they are grouped together at the bottom left of the keypad.
- Pi is on the 3 key, where it belongs.
- SHOW on the = key is not present on the 30b. It would reveal all the digits of the number in the X-register.
- Almost all the keys of a standard 4-banger calculator (including STO and RCL but except for %) are found as primary keys in the bottom 5 rows. This could be common across all HP calculators.
- The display of the 30b only has one secondary-function-active indicator, which would be displayed whenever either the gold (f) or the blue (g) keys was active.
Edited: 28 Mar 2010, 6:07 p.m. after one or more responses were posted