“The Control Panel Archive”: The Tactile Beauty Of Buttons, Meters, Knobs And Dials
U.S. Army audiovisual technician stands at her videotape editing station, 1973
If you’re like me, you’ve once or twice seen the near future in the form of Spielberg’s action-packed take on Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report. Not precogs, precrime, or pre-arrests, so much, nor the ubiquitous floating ads, but the scenes in which Tom Cruise’s character controls his tech by speaking to it and waving his hands in the air, doing a sort of interpretive dance in which voice and body take the place of primitive interfaces.
Control panels engage all the senses, become objects of fascination—like this stunningly-photographed abandoned thermal power plant in Hungary—long after they’ve outlived their usefulness. Will the control panel disappear? No, though I suspect touchscreens will take over, replacing the lovely banks of buttons in power plants and other industrial centers.
h/t: flashbak, control-panel, boingboing
The abandoned control panel of a thermal power plant in Kelenföld, Hungary
Andreas S
Space Center, Houston
Mission Control at Disney World’s Tomorrowland
IBM 360 Mainframe and check reading system, 1964
EMS VCS3 Putney
Formula 1 steering wheel (each one is tailored to its specific driver)
Hydroelectric station control center in Itaipu, Brazil
Electronic Music Studios, circa 1970
Longwave transmitter Europe 1, Germany
The Office Of The Future – New York World’s Fair, 1964
Volcanic Museum, César Manrique, Lanzarote Island, 1966-1968
CERN, Electricity control room, 1970
1981 Mazda Cosmo
Kyoto hotel room, Japan
1990 Pontiac Sunfire Concept Car
Reel-to-reel tape recorder
Revox B215 tape deck
Subaru XT, 80s
IBM 702 Machine, 1955
Future
