Unhinged

Among the paraphenalia on my 'workstation' at work (the word 'desk' is so mid-20th Century) is a calculator with an infuriating design feature. The LCD display is separated from the buttons by a hinge so that the screen tilts up to a 45° angle. The problem is that there is nothing to lock the hinge in place so, once flipped up, gravity does its job and the screen falls back down. Having thoroughly examined the hinge and the surrounding plastic casing of the calculator, I can find no evidence whatsoever that there was ever any mechanism that may have broken off or been lost that would keep the screen upright. Why? Why take the time and trouble to design and incorporate an utterly useless hinge? Why bother to add a design feature that clearly implies that the product can do something that, in practice, it cannot? Did some cheeky designer include this conundrum into an otherwise unexceptional calculator simply to infuriate people?

If, by any chance, the designer of the Texas Instruments' TI-1766+ calculator happens to be reading this, please get in touch and explain what that bloody hinge is for.