7 Sep
2007
7 Sep
'07
3:58 p.m.
der Mouse wrote:
Now why do you think there's an HP16C on my electronics bench and rarely
a day goes by that I don't turn on at least one of my HP41s....
Second, the user interface is, at least in my
experience of calculators
and programs that can serve for similar purposes, substantially
better-designed for the task. Part of this is the physical
portability, but not all; a general-purpose keyboard is not the best
input device for calculator functionality.
I think older calculators actually do a better job than many modern
calculators.
With modern calculators, I feel like I do with modern DVD player
remote controls: way too many buttons, way too many suboptions
and menus to do what I actually want.
Bit-mapped LCD screens with their ability to do menus and option
lists are part of the evil. Go back to devices before them, and you
find the core functionality (and all functionality for that matter)
directly accessible. After them, everything is on a menu on a
submenu on a ... You'd think there'd be fewer buttons with all
the menus, but you'd be wrong!
For a classic example of this, try using the binary, octal, or hex modes
on the latest HP35S. To call then unusable would be being kind. Let me
explain
To selet the mode, you select the 'Bases' menu, then either press 1 ... 4
or move the curser to the apropratiate item on the display and hit enter.
The problem is that this only sets the _display_ mode. If yoy select hex
mode and then enter 42, it's interpretted as 42 _decimal_ (and displayed
as 2A). To get 42 hex you type 42, then select the bases menu, scroll
down, and select the lower case 'h' on that menu. I think you can hit the
appropratie digit key -- if you can remember it.
Whoever thought up that user interface has clearly never had to decode a
hex tump.
And that's why that 16C is staying on my bench!
Of course I am often frustrated with modern digital scopes.
Several of the better brands actually bring out onto knobs (well,
they're probably really shaft encoders now) all the traditional
analog knobs that should be on a scope. But other brands and
lesser models put everything behind a menu. Arggghhh!
Or haev one know that sets the Y gain, trigger level, timebase speed, X
shift, Y shift, etc depending on which menu/key you used last. And often
said instruments don't even display what the knob currently controls. If
you gorget, you can find you meant to shift the trace across a bit, but
in fact you've just twiddeled your carefully-adjusted trigger level.
As for the perfect user interface for VCR's, I
think back to the
first home units: to record a program in advance, you turn the
channel knob to the channel you want, and turn some dials to
set the timers for start and stop times. Wonderful! Here we
The first home VCR in the UK (Philips N1500) had an analogue clock. To
set the timer, you twlddled knobs onthat that changed the position and
length of a coloured arc on the clock face. When the hour hand was
within that arc, the machine fired up.
Since the longest tape was one hour, the lrngth of the arc was limited to
1 hour on the dial.
There was another knob with '12' and '24' positins. In the former case,
the machine turned on the first time the hour hand came round to the arc
(in other words sometime in the next 12 hours), in the latter, the
second time it came round (12-24 hours).
Worked well, easy to understand...
Another thin I can't stnad are touch-sensitive displays on cellular
phones, handhelds, etc. A real keyboard can be used one-handed, _without
looking at it_. There ahve been many times I've been watching something
else (say a measuring instruemtn) and wanted to type in numbers to a
calculator. Impossible on these modern touch-screen PDA....
-tony