3 ms·
For that kind of long-lived, low-maintainance, high-abuse machine, you can't just slap in a nice-looking OLED screen from AliBaba, you have to find one that you
by adhesive_wombat 4y ago
For that kind of long-lived, low-maintainance, high-abuse machine, you can't just slap in a nice-looking OLED screen from AliBaba, you have to find one that you have confidence that will still work after 10 years in the sun while being abused daily by the public.
Also at the time the system was designed (possibly pre-smartphones), I remember lots of machines like it, incurring train ticket machines with touchscreen keyboards, had alphabetical keyboards. I suspect there was a recommendation that not everyone, such as very old people, would be familiar with QWERTY. I also suspect that in the intervening decade or so, it was realised that actually no-one can use a 2D alphabetical layout at all, because the alphabet is linear and presenting it a grid didn't work. So actually alphabetical is pretty bad for everyone. But it's also the lowest common denominator.
Sadly, once you've shipped a device like this, no one will pay you to go around and replace very expensive ruggedised keyboards just to make typing easier.
- moron4hire 4y agoExcept that's not what is actually put in these things. It's still just whatever is the cheapest thing on Alibaba. Looks good in the meetings with city council, but give it a few months outside and it becomes nearly unreadable.
- lbriner 4y agoWhy does it have to work for 10 years? Make the parts replaceable and service the machines. The machines in the shade work for 10 years and those in the sun get a £5 replacement every 6 months.
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoA low-volume replacement screen assembly, even with a bottom tier screen, will not be £5. Even just having the machine company receive the part and forward it on without any testing, further assembly, or anything would cost more than that in postage alone. Plus the service fee for getting a service technician out to the machine (I imagine at least £100 a visit), plus the admin overhead of detecting failures and scheduling visits and lost downtime income would make that an extremely hard sell to a council. Hundreds of pounds per machine per year. And then multiply by every other element that you skimp on, and the thing will be broken continuously after the first 6 months, while sapping thousands in parts and labour.
- gravypod 4y ago> high-abuse machine, you can't just slap in a nice-looking OLED screen from AliBaba OLED isn't the only screen technology and it's not what would look best in this environment. The best would be eink which has higher contrast in the sun. Eink can also be put behind weather proofing and be fine. It also doesn't draw power at idle. I wish I could work on fixing all of the IoT gear that governments install.
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoYou can. All those companies are probably hiring. Every industrial hardware company I know is completely desperate for good engineers.
- Nextgrid 4y agoThey aren't desperate enough to pay respectable wages yet.