HP 41C

Around the time of the HP-67, an article in the Hewlett-Packard Journal, stated that electronic technology was no longer the only limitation of pocket calculator progress. The human interface was becoming an even greater barrier to adding more functionality. The HP-67 was an excellent example of the problem. It had three shift keys and most of its other keys had four functions. HP was running out of keyboard space for new functions, and many users found it difficult write and use numeric-only programs. The HP-41C overcame these limitations by adding alphanumeric capabilities to both the display and keyboard. The keyboard had an "Alpha" key that toggled the keyboard between alpha and the normal calculator mode. (The alpha characters were printed on the slanted faces of the keys.) If the user needed a function not printed on a key, the name of the function could be typed in and executed. (About half of the HP-41Cs functions were preassigned to keys.)