[Elecraft] (OT) Touchscreens

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

There will always be those that try concepts in places they have never been
used. But touchscreens have been around for a long time and a lot is known
about them. The all time great defining application for them is in
restaurants for wait staff to enter your food selection.

Repetitive operations using touchscreens require physical use research
which includes designing a mounting scheme that does not produce
physical strain under normal operation.

Normal accuracy of touch point taps has to be accommodated in screen apps.
Large tap points that appear and vanish with an appropriate logic produce
the great workplace improvements. E.g. the wait staff screens.

The stuff behind successful touchscreen apps is mind boggling, often
involving years even now decades of incremental research and program
changes. This touchscreen editor I'm using right now on my smartphone is
one such.

Any one of the list of must-do's ignored and the app is likely doomed.

Touchscreen radio? Not wishing anyone bad luck but they've bitten off quite
a piece of work. Radio ops are very repetitive in contests.

You'll never sell me a pure touch radio for contesting. Maybe a talky with
the form factor of my iPhone 6+ with a Bluetooth linked manual control and
separate Bluetooth linked amp/transmitter.

The obvious (to me anyway) touch interface is to use a smart phone app that
can also run on a tablet. Most people have already bought it and will
replace it when it breaks for dozens of unrelated needs. Don't have to
embed that cost and development into the radio. Let me use my house wifi or
Bluetooth to link to my K3. The K3 change is to provide the interface. An
internal board that listens to wifi and Bluetooth. All single chip stuff
these days.

Will be interesting to see what survives of touchscreen radio when the
latest and greatest crowd has lost interest and moved on.

73, Guy K2AV

On Friday, September 4, 2015, Bill Stravinsky via Elecraft <
elecraft at mailman.qth.net
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','elecraft at mailman.qth.net');>> wrote:

> Not sure why I needed to know about an Icom 7300 and am guessing it has a
> touchscreen.  Leave the touchscreens
> to the smart phones, IMHO.  If I had a smartphone I wouldn't have a
> problem with its touchscreen.  I have 3 laptops and have mice for all of
> them, can't stand touchpads either.  Radios should have knobs, buttons, and
> switches.
> I feel confident that Elecraft wouldn't go there.  Let Icom and whomever
> else make a radio with a touch screen.
> 73Bill K3WJV
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