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HP Voyager series: Difference between revisions
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== Design == | == Design == | ||
One significant design change was the vertical and horizontal rearranging of the four function keys. <syntaxhighlight lang="text"> | A unique aspect of the Voyager series is the landscape layout of the calculator. Combined with the small physical size of the calculator, this permitted a 10 digit display calculator to fit inside an average shirt pocket (the original design goal of the HP35) without undue stress on the latter. | ||
In an attempt at standardizing the product lineup, HP designed all the Voyagers around the same chasis, which was a two-piece plastic design, secured using four screws hidden under the rubber feets. The front plate housed the keyboard legend, the display acryllic window and the faceplate which had an indent for a HP logo and name plaque. These were all secured using glue. The rear plate held a glued-on painted metallic plate with additional information, the battery compartment holding three LR/SR44 cells, as well as the rubber feets. Internally the PCB is secured to the front plate using heat-stakes, with up to three surface mount ICs soldered to the backside. The LCD display is held by eight bent metallic feet to the PCB, and is electrically connected to the front side of the PCB via elastomeric connector (otherwise known as ZEBRA connectors). | |||
The display is a 10-digit 7-segments LCD display with an extra minus sign to the left, featuring annunciators for USER mode, f/g shifts, BEGIN, (G)RAD, C(omplex), D.MY and PRGM mode. Not all are used on any given calculator. It can display 10 digits fixed point number, or 8 digits of mantissa and 2 exponents for positive exponents, and one less mantissa for negative exponents. Internally operations are conducted in BCD with 10 decimal digits of accuracy, | |||
One significant design change was the vertical and horizontal rearranging of the four function keys, breaking from the tradition established by HP35 in 1972. Due to the great commercial success of the Voyagers, this new arrangement was subsequently inherited by later Pioneers and beyond, a decision that to this day remains highly controversial within the HP community. <syntaxhighlight lang="text"> | |||
HP41C and all before "Classic HP layout": | HP41C and all before "Classic HP layout": | ||
- 1 2 3 | - 1 2 3 | ||
| Line 13: | Line 19: | ||
7 8 9 - | 7 8 9 - | ||
0 .(?)+ | 0 .(?)+ | ||
</syntaxhighlight> | </syntaxhighlight>Some complaints were that this arrangement broke long-standing user habit, broke the physical proximity of the operators to the stack lifting ENTER key, or that the new location is illogical as the most used arithmetic operators tends to be the multiply and addition keys, which should be grouped together, etc., Others defended that this arrangement allowed easier single-handed operation for right-handed users using their dominant hand, which was arguably more important for the Voyager form factor. | ||
== Common features == | == Common features == | ||