deskthority

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...

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

Need Alps SKCM graphing calculator .

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: 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?

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.

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

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.

@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