Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!harrier.ukc.ac.uk!eagle.ukc.ac.uk!icdoc!tgould!awm From: awm@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk (Aled Morris) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore Message-ID: Date: 6 Feb 89 21:29:35 GMT References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <4575@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> <319@itcatl.UUCP> Sender: news@doc.ic.ac.uk Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London Lines: 25 In-reply-to: jonathan@itcatl.UUCP's message of 2 Feb 89 23:48:07 GMT >Is it true that the phone company designed touch-tone keyboards upside- >down from calcutaor, etc numeric keypads because data entry people could >punch faster than the first generation switching systems could read? Sounds like the excuse for the existence of the QWERTY layout keyboard (that is, to make it difficult to use so the mechanics of those early typerwriters wouldn't jam so often). Talking of computers which can be upgraded by removing boards and the like, have you ever met the Casio "fx" range of calculators. All of them _must_ have the same chipset inside, since irrespective of their model number, and the engravings on the key caps, they are all capable of the scientific functions from the top-of-the-range version. All you need to do is close your eyes and pretend that you're using a 550, and all the stats functions, radians mode etc. etc. are there! (the above may be an over-generalisation, I only ever met three or four calculators from the range, but they all exhibited this feature) Aled Morris systems programmer mail: awm@doc.ic.ac.uk | Department of Computing uucp: ..!ukc!icdoc!awm | Imperial College talk: 01-589-5111x5085 | 180 Queens Gate, London SW7 2BZ