Mechanical calculators are back: welcome to the 1980s

[ohaimark]

This isn't my review, but I'm posting it here anyways. The 1980s are back in all of their glory! Focus lives on in spirit...

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Ha, someone was finally forced to support scancode entry. That's something that you need on key entry–programmed keyboards.

[Chyros]

Need Alps SKCM graphing calculator .

[Findecanor]

Ha, someone was finally forced to support scancode entry. That's something that you need on key entry–programmed keyboards.

You mean that Focus' keyboards didn't have that?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I don't know, but it's a flaw with the Poker II: you can't bind keys to anything not already on the keyboard somewhere (since there is no scancode entry), and so far as I know the Pok3r is equally limited.

As for a graphing calculator, well, I used ad-hoc BBC BASIC programs for that back in my school days. (Even better, it places (0, 0) at the bottom left of the screen where it belongs, and there is a facility to move the origin, so I can place (0, 0) centre screen and draw graphs using correct co-ordinates, just maybe with a scaling factor. However, the curious gotcha is the virtual resolution: all screen modes share the same co-ordinates, and pixels have widths and heights > 1.) Granted, that was only Futaba MR series linear switches, but still.

[Menuhin]

Is that the Ducky pocket?

We can bring back the Ippei Matsumoto 10-Key Calculator (aka Alpsulator) and one that does not suck (reports said key press does not register or lags) when connected to a computer.

I don't like the glossy caps, but it is overall quite handsome - it is indeed an exhibition item in MoMA

[Daniel Beardsmore]

That one has the screen raised to the same height as the keycaps, which looks much better.

I'm hoping though that we reach a point where OLED replaces LCD completely: one thing about reflective LCD that never looks good is the sunken look of the display. I still have an old Casio fx-82 that has the same AA battery it's had for 20 years, but I seldom use it. I did once buy a state of the art Casio with formula entry (when I mistakenly thought my fx-82 was stolen after I left it behind in a classroom and it disappeared), but it was useless: the viewing angle of a matrix LCD is so much worse than a 7-segment LCD that with the calculator sat on your desk, you can't actually read the display. However, the fx-82 had been handed in, so I got it back.

What I do get from a proper scientific calculator is brackets: one reason I'd never buy an Alpsulator or Ducky is that it just makes for a really terrible calculator. At the very least you need bracket keys (I realise you can pretend to be a stack machine using M+/MR/MC but if the machine can't be a real stack machine, it needs brackets keys).

The Windows Calculator has come of age, and even the Windows 10 Metro one is more usable than the real thing; at work I've not even bothered installing the Windows 8 version as I can live with the replacement. It's even got constant operand mode.

[Phenix]

@Beardsmore

I run into the same problem with basic numpads.
Luckily i just ordered an pcb for one of these maxipads - I think they will serve quite good as extended numpad
(or as HTPC KODI control). They don't have an display - for me that's an plus