Do you find anything unusual with this calculator?
by Volker Weber
Comments
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vs.
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Like a phone, not a calculator.
Ouch!
Just take a look at a "classic" BlackBerry and you know why the calculator on the Storm looks this way.
Abdelkader, whatever the reason, it is completely impractical for people who use a desktop calculator once in a while or who do other calculations besides adding numbers. Compare to these two guys:
This reminds me of a great prank I used to pull on people in the office which relies upon our ease with these two keypad arrangements...
Disassemble the desk telephone and swap the top and bottom rows of the keys to produce the 'traditional' calculator keypad layout. Make a few calls to the victim so that they know their 'phone is working OK then sit back and wait... 'Oh, sorry, no - wrong number', 'Err, sorry, I'm not sure why I did that, what extension are you?', 'Damn! oops, sorry, there must be something wrong with my 'phone' etc, etc. Stifle the laughter and enjoy for the rest of the day.
I guess what helped the success of this prank was that we were the design and development department of a large-ish engineering company, where calculator use was as common as telephone use. When you're at ease with both layouts, it takes a surprisingly long period of time before you realise that something's wrong when it has been switched around.
In 2006 we made this the other way round - took the keys off the keyboard and put them back like on a phone dial.
We showed that to the purchasing girl and to the productmanager(!) and told them: "New Keyboard because of new EU regulations." Both believed it :-D
-Sascha
Spiegel coverage:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/0,1518,572177,00.html
Interesting side-note: Either vowe is now also a mobile provider, or he has jailbroken his iPhone (and is running MiM). :-)
Somehow related: How the numbers on the phone were born [via Kottke]
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