>>It's a bit awkward to type with crossed fingers...
Yes, that's the sort of contribution I've come to appreciate! ;-) Thank God it's Friday- at least here, and maybe there as well by the time you read this.
In HP's defense, they produce an awful lot of machines and customers often vote with their wallets, reliably choosing a $100 cheaper machine with a flexing plastic case over an aluminium competitor with higher quality parts. Mind you, vendors have never helped themselves- I recall the TRS-80 shipped with uppercase only because the alpha chip including lower case cost a few pennies more.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
