When HN users recommended it
1 HN user recommended this in 2011, in one comment.
20072026
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
1 HN user recommended this in 2011, in one comment.
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
"What's the smallest laptop you can get that has a real number pad, with its own enter, +, -, x, and / keys?"
An arbitrarily-small laptop of your choice, up to and including cell phones, plus one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Targus-PAUK10U-Ultra-Mini-Keypad/dp/B0...
Not good enough? Tack a few more keys on and sell it for $30 instead. But I would be quite sure the average student would be happy to use the keypad and on-screen buttons for sin, cos, tan, e^x, and the two or three other things they actually use in school. For that matter most kids are going to be fine with the cell phone as-is, which, I might remind you, also frequently has dedicated numeric keys and enough other repurposeable keys to get you quite a ways.
(Still not enough keys? Try turning on num lock on your netbook's keyboard. Most still have them. Then bind the other keys to useful functions. It may not be optimal but with only a bit of practice it probably won't be a stopper. The keyboard is your slave, not your master.)
Yes, this won't permit very fast entry, but you and I (mmm, sweet sweet RPN) are not the norm. Go look at your average TI-82 user; IIRC, they are hunting and pecking those keyboards anyhow.
To be honest I swing the other way myself; eliminate them entirely. But at least 15 years ago when I bought my HP-48G for very similar amounts of money I was actually getting something. If we are going to be turning out these calculators, they ought to be $30, not $130.