Brendan,
I didn't get as far as trying an official keyboard test. In fact, I would have to consult the manual to know what that is!
In the first Chinese calc, when I pressed the zero key I could get anywhere from no zeros to four or five depending on how I pressed the key -- or perhaps depending, from all I could tell, on which way the wind was blowing.
In the second Chinese calc, two other number keys gave trouble; I believe one of them was a seven, I forget the other. It was not quite as bad as the first.
As you may guess, by this time I was trying all keys of a new calc for function -- many times -- before accepting it. I would enter a succession of zeros, then ones, etc., clearing the display as necessary before continuing.
In the first Malaysian unit, the trouble was with the blue "g" shift key and the RCL key. If I were not watching the display as I worked, I could feel the key click, but not necessarily have the function work, which caused me consternation in writing programs. The unit was workable, but not really acceptable -- at least from HP. When a prefix key of this sort is pressed, the display will blink when the key is effective; I could press the key, feel the spring, but have no response from the display, and find out that the g-shift or RCL function had not worked. Press the key a different way, and everything would work -- but there was not a reliable relationship between the spring feel and the working.
When I think back to my slide-rule days, to log and trig tables, etc., I can wonder at how spoiled I have become. Think what Ptolemy or Kepler could have done with any of the calculators that I took back! (though they would have preferred one with trig functions!) I would have given most anything in the 1950's to have had that lousy calc with the mis-firing zeros! But Hewlett Packard has led us to expect perfection, and we are disappointed when we no longer find it at first try.
Tom
