Re: HP 50g keyboard layout

Hello,

the reason the HP 48GX was so successful is the enormous software
basis that is available for this machine.

You are buying a piece of hardware from HP but you do so to run
software on it.

IMHO you should keep one thing in mind:
Supposing that there ever will be a successor to the 50G and not
having to rewrite or to recompile all software (which is not as much
as for the 48 series but still a lot of software which has been
written over the years) of a possible successor has to keep software
compatibility even with a changed keyboard.

This could be achieved by the O.S. (it has already be done for the
keys that changed from the 49G to the 49G+) by checking the machine
the O.S. is running on and act accordingly. Also this would have to be
done for all user key assignments and related commands if the keyboard
layout changes.

So, if the keyboard changes for a wide ENTER key you have to stick to
50 keys to be somehow compatible to the 49G/49G+/50G. This could be
done by using the space around the arrow keys and moving the other
keys so that the wide ENTER key fits into the keyboard. If it is done
the keyboard should not change more than necessary due to
compatibility.

But this would mean:
A new face plate is needed (how expensive is this ?).
The O.S. has to be adjusted for distinguishing between the new and the
previous machine. This code won’t be written in ten minutes.
The manuals have to be adjusted (this is expensive).
How do you easily explain to first time customers the differences of
the machines and which one they should buy ?
Will there be cannibalism on the sales of the previous machines with
the new machines ?

There are probably more things to think about but these the ones that
came to my mind first this morning.

And the last and most important questions of all:
How many machines have to be sold just to be break-even ?

Regards,
Andreas
http://www.software49g.gmxhome.de

P.S. As this has been asked somewhere else: Why is [MODE] an unshifted
key ? [CUSTOM] as on the SX/GX would be a better choice, yes it can be
switched by USER assignments but still the question remains.
.

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