HP 39gs Master Manual page 12

The Screen keys
A special type of key unique to the hp 39gs, hp 40gs and family is the
row of blank keys directly under the screen. These keys change their
function depending on what you are doing at the time. The easiest way
to see this is to press the
are listed at the bottom of the screen. All you have to is to press the key
under the screen definition you want to use. These buttons are normally
referred to as SK1 to SK6, where SK is "Screen Key".
All references to keys of this type are shown as images of the label. For
example, if I want you to press the key under the SORT label it would be
written as . Do it now and you'll see the screen shown on the
right. Notice that the keys have now changed function. Press the one
under to return to the previous view.
Pop-up menus & short-cuts
Sometimes pressing a key pops up a menu on the screen as you just saw. You use the up/down arrow keys
to move the highlight through the menu and make choices by pressing the
listed in a menu will usually be written using italics. As an example, I might say to press
Chronologically. The manual you are given with your calculator uses a different convention.
As mentioned before, the third way a key can be used is to get letters of the alphabet. This is not so that you
can write letters to your friends (although you can do that with the Notepad) but so that you can use variables
like X and Y or A and B. The key above the
alphabet. Lower case letters are obtained by pressing the
type in more than just a single letter, hold down the
lowercase.
Try this...
If you haven't already,
Press the key to see the screen on the right. Yours may not be
HOME
blank like mine but that doesn't matter.
Press and then press the screen key labeled
1 2
image. Now press the
the θ key). Finally, press the
XT
like the one on the right. You have now stored the value
. Each alpha key can be used as a memory.
D
Note that memories
X, T
operation of the calculator and should be used with caution.
key. As you can see right, the functions
APLET
SHIFT
out of the menu from the previous screen.
key and then the alphabetic
ALPHA
key. Your screen should look
ENTER
θ
and are regularly overwritten by the normal
ENTER
key labeled
ALPHA
key before the
SHIFT
key. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for
ALPHA
, circled on the
key (on
D
into memory
12
12
key. Choices that are
and choose
is used to type in letters of the
key. If you want to
ALPHA