From: asmith@acorn.co.uk (Andy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.palmtops
Subject: Re: CallForDiscussion: A*BETTER* HP95LX?
Date: 16 Oct 92 07:58:15 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

In article <1992Oct14.124422.13157@abo.fi> MLINDROOS@finabo.abo.fi (Marcus Lindroos INF) writes:

>In <1992Oct07.204119.152524@zeus.calpoly.edu> claudius@zeus.calpoly.edu writes:

>A Psion-3 keyboard (=larger but fewer keys arranged like on a standard PC [TAB,
>"@" in their correct places]) would be a better option than the current 95LX
>keypad - for SOME tasks! I agree that having a separate numeric keypad is
>better for Lotus 1-2-3 and the calculator, but not for using the memo editor. 

You must be kidding:-) I have both a Psion and a 95. The keyboard on the 95
is much superior. Firstly when using a spreadsheet, calculator or even
the phone pad, a separate numeric pad is very useful. Its much slower keep
having to find the numbers above the letters on the Psion.

If you hold the Psion over the 95, you will find that the spacing of the
keys is much the same on the alpha pad, I find I can type much faster on the
95 also, as there is a far better feedback from the keyboard, and you don't
keep missing keys, like you do on the Psion.

>> *  More correct alignment between the function keys and the f1-f10 on the
>>    bottom of the display.  [It's pretty darn close, but the keys are about 2mm
>>    to the right of the display's F1-F10 readouts.]

Agreed. This is a pain. You keep having to look at the functions on the
screen, match them up then find the function key. An option to turn off the
function key labels and gain another two lines would also be useful.

>> *  Wordperfect - a big editor, more functional but it would increase the price
>>    of the portable considerably.  There are more useful things you could get
>>    for the increase in price.
>
>I agree. It should be an OPTION, but not a mandatory one like Lotus 1-2-3.

I agree also, however one of the principle ideas of the 95 was to make 123
portable, and as Lotus did a lot of the software, I don't think word perfect
would be a good idea. However I do believe that Symphony should be put in
instead of 123, or made available on a card as an upgrade (that uses 123
from ROM). 

What ever anyone else says. If I'm editing a document on the train, I want
to be able to see that document in full, including the styles. I do not want
the ASCII representation. This is the one advantage of the Psion. You can
see the styles in documents.

Remove the editor and put in Symphony.

>> *  a better RPN calculator
>
>An improved calculator would be far too expensive, but it would be great to
>have an optional HP48 ROM card.

This is a business machine not a scientific, thus it has a business
calculator (a very good one at that). That said, I would also like to see
a 48 made available for the 95. Even if HP sold a 48 card for the 95 that
was as much as the 48S, it would still be worth getting, just so that I can
have everything in one box, rather than having a 28S for studying and a 95
for work. A 48 card would not be competing against the 48, it would
suppliment it.

Until a 48 card comes out, we will have to make do with Derive. On this when
are we going to get a system manager compliant Derive??

It would also be useful to have a 1 key save, or update file key, rather
than having to go through a menu sequence, or record that sequence onto a
CHAR+Fn key.

I would also have liked to see a 5mm PCMCIA 2.0 card slot, but after
speaking to Mr Donelly at the HPCC conference, it would appear this is not
currently possible. There isn't the room.

Speed up the V20 to 8Mhz and have a software switch option for 5Mhz/8Mhz.
This will hit the batteries a bit, but would at least give you the choice of
battery life or faster recalculation of spreadsheets. I'm sure some tweeking
of the Maxim chips could make this possible.

Have a repeat on the alarm. Currently when the alarm goes off and your not
around, you don't get to know about it until you turn the machine on again.
You should be able to set the alarm, so that it repeats every x minutes
until answered. You should also be able to set the length of time it goes
off for between say 10 and 30 seconds.

The agenda should take you to today by default when its entered. I find it a
real pain that when I go into the agenda the next day, its still sitting on
the previous day. If you leave the agenda on say Tuesday, it should switch
to Wednesday at midnight.

Overall the 95 is the best pocket machine there is currently, and with
Derive 2.5 its the most powerful pocket calculator as well.


>> ---King Claudius---                                   claudius@zeus.calpoly.edu


Andy Smith
asmith@acorn.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.palmtops