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From: jpser@cup.portal.com (John Paul Serafin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Crazy dreams of HP48's with touchscreens
Message-ID: <38408@cup.portal.com>
Date: 24 Jan 91 03:43:34 GMT
References: <38125@cup.portal.com> <1991Jan21.163755.9569@ugle.unit.no>
  <279c8752:1727.10comp.sys.handhelds;1@hpcvbbs.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 42

akcs.falco@hpcvbbs.UUCP (Andrey Dolgachev) writes:
>... Jake             
>Schwartz makes a good point when he talks about a Hypercard-like keyboard     
 
>with keys that can be whatever shape and location we wish.  I think that      
 
>an interesting idea would be, not to put a touch-screen on such a small       
 
>screen, but to make a seperate tablet with functions and menu commands on     
 
>it.  This would be like the Wiz for the Mac, with common functions and        
 
>commands available as templates for your graphics tablet.  The problem        
 
>with this, of course is that it would be too large for handheld use, even     
 
>if it was significantly minituarized.  A touch-sceen would be better for      
 
>a more graphics-oriented sytem than the HP currently is.  The problem         
 
>with the 48 is that there are as many, if not more commands than a            
 
>standard computer program, without the large screen and graphical             
 
>interface.  Anybody have ideas on how to make real menus, aka Windows or      
 
>Mac for the HP (w/o using a lot of space)?                                    
 
>          ----Falco
This is more along the lines of a future calculator, but ...
I've always thought it would be nice if keycaps were displays.   The small
size would allow much better contrast for LCD's, there would be a menu
selection for every key, and the entire main display would be available
for other uses.   ALL key labeling could be done this way, allowing more
or larger keys, since the space between them wouldn't be needed for
labels. The displays could change whenever a shift key is pressed.
Alternatively, the label area above each key could be a display.   This
would take care of the finger print problem, perhaps at the cost of reducing
the density of keys.   I suspect this idea has come up before, but I can't
recall a reference.
John Serafin
jpser@cup.portal.com