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Touchtone vs Calculator...why the different layout?

Started by Nick in Manitou, June 14, 2015, 05:42:32 PM

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Owain

Of course in Britain our comptometers had to cope with pre-decimal currency. 4 farthings to the penny, 12 pence to the shilling (our current 5p), 2 shillings to the florin (our current 10p), 2s 6d to the half-crown, 5s to the crown, 20 s to the £, and £1 1s to the Guinea.

Children learned their multiplpication tables in those days!

paul-f

Quote from: TelePlay on June 15, 2015, 12:50:26 AM
Those who do accounting type data entry well are fantastic to watch. The 4 fingers are used for numbers and entry buttons while the thumb is only used for the "0." Those who know a calculator number pad well can enter an amazing volume of information just scanning a sheet and never looking at the number pad.

It is equally possible to be really quick on a touch tone pad with some serious practice.

When I was in college, the U had an experimental system from IBM that included an audio response unit and interface so we could dial in from a 2500 type set and program the computer from home.  Each character required two keystrokes. Needless to say, even a simple Fortran program required loads of keystrokes.  After a few months of that, I could enter programs and data at warp speed, without thinking about the data entry process - and while carrying on a conversation with my roommates. 

It was entertaining to listen to the system try to pronounce words.  As I recall, "operator" had the emphasis on the last syllable -- opera-TOR.  things have come a long way since then.
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