4 ms·

In a world where old graphic manuals are reissued on Kickstarter and people buy hardcover books or vinyl just to have a beautiful functional object, what needs

In a world where old graphic manuals are reissued on Kickstarter and people buy hardcover books or vinyl just to have a beautiful functional object, what needs updating even there? I think it correctly notes that we tend to make new physical artifacts to retain experiences that have become disembodied and abstracted away from us.

jerf 5y ago
Actually, it was the "button press" that I think is out of date, for much the same reason the original Enterprise bridge looks very silly nowadays. We don't need huge arrays of buttons like that anymore. We may still want a few physical ones, of course, just as we like physical volume and climate controls in our cars, but our 21st century Machine rooms would not have hundreds of buttons in them, but a touchscreen and voice interface. Even if we had a physical manual for it, which I'm totally comfortable with as a story choice. You may have simply automatically upgraded the interface in your head, but I'm pretty sure the author was envisioning something more like the Enterprise bridge.
- qayxc 5y ago
  > We don't need huge arrays of buttons like that anymore. I wouldn't be too sure about that. Here's the bridge of a modern cruise ship (Quantum Of The Seas): https://safety4sea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wartsila-image-Bridge_Quatum_of_the_Seas.jpg https://safety4sea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wartsila-i... Quite a few buttons; that keyboard in the front right alone has at least 104 keys. Another image of rows of buttons inside the control room of a nuclear submarine: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/21/13/306D657A00000578-0-image-a-37_1453383949723.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/21/13/306D657A000005... If anything, the number of buttons has gone up, not down over the course of the last century. Airplane cockpit 100 years ago: https://cdn.virily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4F5A8778_M.jpg https://cdn.virily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4F5A8778_M... Airplane cockpit today: https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/products-and-solutions/commercial-aircraft/cabin-and-cargo/Simu_cockpit_A350XWB.jpg?wid=1000 https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/produ... Granted half of the buttons are for redundancy, that's still quite a lot of buttons.
  - Animats 5y ago
    For aircraft, Peak Button was reached at the end of the large propeller aircraft era. Here's the B-36 flight engineer's station. [1] The B-36 had 6 propellers and 4 jet engines. Most of those controls are for engine management of the reciprocating engines. [1] http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-7.html http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-7.html
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Touch screens simply suck if you need to interact with a device in rough conditions - high seas or turbulence. That's a big reason why most serious transportation vessels still have lots of buttons. It's far easier to stabilize your hand on a panel and use a button or knob interface than to try and hit the right button while going from 0.5G to +1.5G and +/- 30 degrees of bank.
  - jerf 5y ago
    I was not making a generalized argument that everything should be touch screens. I was making the point that a Machine denizen if written in modern times would be using a touchscreen or voice interface. Or perhaps a keyboard, though that starts to get a bit more open ended than I think the idea is here. Evidence, if not outright proof, is that is exactly what we have today in the prototype Machine we're living in. We do not interact with our Machine environments via an array of bespoke, single-purpose buttons. You can also step up the sci-fi a bit and assert a brain-reading device. However, as I was saying, it definitely dates the work to write as if a big array of buttons is how one would interact with the Machine. But I reiterate, all things considered, only a little. It still holds up brilliantly.
    - c22 5y ago
      > We do not interact with our Machine environments via an array of bespoke, single-purpose buttons. We don't? Every single light source in my house is controlled by a bespoke button or switch. I have buttons to control the burners on my stove, the temperature in my room, the music, etc. I have two buttons on my toilet and I select the appropriate flush mode based on context. I have a button I carry in my pocket to open my car which is full of buttons. At the parking garage a button raises the gate and gives me a ticket. Even the coke machine with a touchscreen has a dedicated button to dispense liquid.

jerf 5y ago

Actually, it was the "button press" that I think is out of date, for much the same reason the original Enterprise bridge looks very silly nowadays. We don't need huge arrays of buttons like that anymore. We may still want a few physical ones, of course, just as we like physical volume and climate controls in our cars, but our 21st century Machine rooms would not have hundreds of buttons in them, but a touchscreen and voice interface. Even if we had a physical manual for it, which I'm totally comfortable with as a story choice. You may have simply automatically upgraded the interface in your head, but I'm pretty sure the author was envisioning something more like the Enterprise bridge.

qayxc 5y ago
> We don't need huge arrays of buttons like that anymore. I wouldn't be too sure about that. Here's the bridge of a modern cruise ship (Quantum Of The Seas): https://safety4sea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wartsila-image-Bridge_Quatum_of_the_Seas.jpg https://safety4sea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wartsila-i... Quite a few buttons; that keyboard in the front right alone has at least 104 keys. Another image of rows of buttons inside the control room of a nuclear submarine: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/21/13/306D657A00000578-0-image-a-37_1453383949723.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/21/13/306D657A000005... If anything, the number of buttons has gone up, not down over the course of the last century. Airplane cockpit 100 years ago: https://cdn.virily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4F5A8778_M.jpg https://cdn.virily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4F5A8778_M... Airplane cockpit today: https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/products-and-solutions/commercial-aircraft/cabin-and-cargo/Simu_cockpit_A350XWB.jpg?wid=1000 https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/produ... Granted half of the buttons are for redundancy, that's still quite a lot of buttons.
- Animats 5y ago
  For aircraft, Peak Button was reached at the end of the large propeller aircraft era. Here's the B-36 flight engineer's station. [1] The B-36 had 6 propellers and 4 jet engines. Most of those controls are for engine management of the reciprocating engines. [1] http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-7.html http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/CW_tour/CW-7.html
Syonyk 5y ago
Touch screens simply suck if you need to interact with a device in rough conditions - high seas or turbulence. That's a big reason why most serious transportation vessels still have lots of buttons. It's far easier to stabilize your hand on a panel and use a button or knob interface than to try and hit the right button while going from 0.5G to +1.5G and +/- 30 degrees of bank.
- jerf 5y ago
  I was not making a generalized argument that everything should be touch screens. I was making the point that a Machine denizen if written in modern times would be using a touchscreen or voice interface. Or perhaps a keyboard, though that starts to get a bit more open ended than I think the idea is here. Evidence, if not outright proof, is that is exactly what we have today in the prototype Machine we're living in. We do not interact with our Machine environments via an array of bespoke, single-purpose buttons. You can also step up the sci-fi a bit and assert a brain-reading device. However, as I was saying, it definitely dates the work to write as if a big array of buttons is how one would interact with the Machine. But I reiterate, all things considered, only a little. It still holds up brilliantly.
  - c22 5y ago
    > We do not interact with our Machine environments via an array of bespoke, single-purpose buttons. We don't? Every single light source in my house is controlled by a bespoke button or switch. I have buttons to control the burners on my stove, the temperature in my room, the music, etc. I have two buttons on my toilet and I select the appropriate flush mode based on context. I have a button I carry in my pocket to open my car which is full of buttons. At the parking garage a button raises the gate and gives me a ticket. Even the coke machine with a touchscreen has a dedicated button to dispense liquid.