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Before pixels: Modular industrial dashboards

296 points · 59 comments · leephillips

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DocJade · 1790798490 · focus · HN ↗
There's really so much physicality to interacting with objects that we've lost as we switch to more and more touch screens and capacitive buttons. Also the reassuring "thunk" of a nice chunky button to confirm you've pressed it is just so important to user confidence
1. Razengan · 1790804050 · focus · HN ↗
  Don't worry, now we're about to completely lose touch too: Now you'll just talk to an AI and take its word for having done what you wanted :)
  The photos on that article are nice inspiration for some pseudo-steampunk/vacuumpunk stuff.
2. DonHopkins · 1790807354 · focus · HN ↗
  Check out this chunky industrial Bakelite switch with a resonant thunking spring clicking action that you have to overshoot each of the four rotations by 45 degrees before it clicks. It feels so good, it's nice to just turn around and around just for pure audio and kinesthetic pleasure. So much better than a Tesla iPad control. (Never mind the gorilla!)
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/o_n5W2I2p_M" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/o_n5W2I2p_M
  It's from the Amsterdam Bakelite Collection, founded/curated by Reindert Groot. It isn't actually a museum you can visit at this moment, but it's a huge beautiful collection, with lots of interesting photos and articles and newsletters online, and parts of it surface in museums around the world from time to time.
  <a href="http://www.amsterdambakelitecollection.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amsterdambakelitecollection.com/
  There are some beautiful photos in the newsletters, like the colossal steel 1500 Kg two-part injection mold, and the restored SAAL Soft SPEAKER with the Bakelite Bell:
  <a href="http://www.amsterdambakelitecollection.com/newsletter202411/index.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.amsterdambakelitecollection.com/newsletter202411/...
  Other interesting Bakelite links from previous Hacker News discussions:
  1956 Philips 353A Bakelite Vacuum Tube Radio Repair & Restoration
  <a href="https://retrorepairsandrefurbs.com/2022/09/06/1956-philips-353a-bakelite-vacuum-tube-radio-repair-restoration/" rel="nofollow">https://retrorepairsandrefurbs.com/2022/09/06/1956-philips-3...
  Bakelite to the Future - 1950s rotary phone ESP32 bluetooth headset
  <a href="https://blog.waleson.com/2024/10/bakelite-to-future-1950s-rotary-phone.html" rel="nofollow">https://blog.waleson.com/2024/10/bakelite-to-future-1950s-ro...
  1. jacquesm · 1790815720 · focus · HN ↗
    That restoration work on the speaker and the paper box is so well done. I spent some time under the Rijksmuseum in the workshops and the people there are similarly skilled and it was very impressive to see them at work, infinite patience and the result of all that work as invisible as possible. That's the bit that really got me, good restorers don't have any fingerprints, their biggest successes are the works that look like they were never worked on in the first place. Which is almost the opposite of every other form of creative art, and yet, they are amongst the best in the field.
    DonHopkins · 1790914149 · focus · HN ↗
    I knew I could count on you to ignore the gorilla, my friend.
    jacquesm · 1790942357 · focus · HN ↗
    My grandmother had a wall mounted phone in the hallway that could serve as a means of defense if you ever had a reason for such a thing. The whole affair was probably 10 Kg and the handset alone was more than a kilo. It helped keeping phone calls short I guess :)
    It was this huge mounting plate with a separate set of bells (really big ones too, large house). The whole thing easily came to 25 cm off the wall. Unfortunately my family does not really appreciate old tech and it got thrown away. I think it was a pre-war device, all glossy wood with a built in shelf for your phone number book.
3. leptons · 1790835921 · focus · HN ↗
  These physical controls do still exist, where it absolutely has to work. I took a photo of a pretty nice physical control panel at a fairly new ride at Disneyland recently. The modularity and tactile oversized buttons and switches were really cool. I built an art car for Burning Man and used similar industrial controls, they look cool and are really rugged.
Aardwolf · 1790806906 · focus · HN ↗
> Don’t you just want to rotate it, no matter what it does?
A grandparent's house had light switches that looked kind of like this but black (bakelite). And they are very satisfying, a good amount of resistance while rotating, then click.
1. TeMPOraL · 1790840466 · focus · HN ↗
  When I was a kid, I spotted one on the exterior wall of a store near where I lived; it sat there for many years and got painted over at least twice before someone eventually removed it. As far as I could tell even then, it was long disconnected and didn't do anything - but it was hell of a fun to stop by each time and just turn it around a few times.
2. dddw · 1790854072 · focus · HN ↗
  Oof, yes they did kill quite a lot of lifhtbulbs in my student house though, wonder why exactly though.
slg · 1790808616 · focus · HN ↗
I recently watched both the 1974 and 2009 versions of The Taking of Pelham 123 and it really stood out how the industrial designs of their respective eras helped elevate the original[1][2] in comparison to the remake[3][4].
[1] - <a href="https://media.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Taking-of-Pelham-One-Two-Three-1974.mkv_snapshot_00.47.13_2022.12.21_12.58.24-1920x1080.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://media.doblu.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Taking-of...
[2] - <a href="https://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/21019979/1118full-the-taking-of-pelham-1--2--3-(1974)-screenshot.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/21019979/1118full-the-taking...
[3] - <a href="https://c8.alamy.com/comp/K3KWM1/the-taking-of-pelham-123-date-2009-K3KWM1.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://c8.alamy.com/comp/K3KWM1/the-taking-of-pelham-123-da...
[4] - <a href="https://press.moviewalker.jp/api/resizeimage/content/main/mv38301_86036ba511969ecd8f2e1604154a41f16f618.jpg?w=680" rel="nofollow">https://press.moviewalker.jp/api/resizeimage/content/main/mv...
greazy · 1790809548 · focus · HN ↗
The very cool <a href="https://www.astrouxds.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.astrouxds.com aims to be the pixel version of the physical dashboards. It's a very cool design library.
Not related to Astro the templating engine.
1. shauniel · 1790838214 · focus · HN ↗
  It looks like they are moving to a new version?
2. freecodeio · 1790866834 · focus · HN ↗
  don't wanna throw any shade but I don't see anything unique about it that makes it a "pixel version of a physical dashboard", it just looks like a very 2015-unstyled bootstrap
jacquesm · 1790816109 · focus · HN ↗
>This big industrial switch toggled between day and night. I don’t know if it changed the operation of the system, or is just switched on some sort of a dark mode for the panel itself:
I think we can answer that with 'yes, it changed the operation of the system. The indicator next to it is labeled in Amperes and 30 Amps is a lot of current. depending on the driving voltage at 24 V (pretty common for control panels like this one) that's 700W give or take and if it is a line voltage (220 V in poland at the time) that 6.6KW.
1. beachy · 1790818967 · focus · HN ↗
  You are probably right, but I feel like a gigantic dashboard like that could well use 700W in just its own lighting.
  1. jacquesm · 1790819824 · focus · HN ↗
    That's true, but I would not expect it to be in a place where there was much difference between day and night lighting to begin with.
2. RavuAlHemio · 1790841613 · focus · HN ↗
  I know a few things about German signal boxes, and I doubt the Polish ones will be too different in this regard.
  Railway signals have a “daytime” and a lower “nighttime” intensity to make sure that the driver sees the red signal in the summer sun, but doesn’t get blinded by the same red signal on their final run of the day at midnight. The switching between these intensities is done on the signaling panel and I assume that’s what the big switch is for.
  1. jacquesm · 1790844463 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, that is exactly what I thought it would be for.
3. garaetjjte · 1790858662 · focus · HN ↗
  No, these two elements are not related. Day/night switch is for panel backlight. Current meter indicates measures current drawn by rail switch motors.
motohagiography · 1790817767 · focus · HN ↗
Maybe every abstraction is a finite state machine, and we can construct an analog circuit of any of them. I have an opinion about metrics where they are not the data, but the emergent analog signal from a system.
The idea of collecting data and deriving metrics from it is absurd when you look at your system as a thing that has inputs and an output and the line for the output goes up or down over time. The beauty of these industrial systems is that the makers understood this principle. The system produces a _signal_ that bears meaning that these interfaces express.
bezko · 1790824652 · focus · HN ↗
These are tiny compared to what Hans Zimmer is using: <a href="https://synthanatomy.com/2025/10/syntesla-giorgio-iii-a-monster-modular-synthesizer-custom-built-for-hans-zimmers-next-level-tour.html" rel="nofollow">https://synthanatomy.com/2025/10/syntesla-giorgio-iii-a-mons...
apgwoz · 1790824847 · focus · HN ↗
Hmm. Is this why rail maps tend to look like circuit traces?
It’d kind of make sense for the operator status map to look like the map you hand out, or put in stations. The design is an abstraction good enough for understanding switching status for operators, why not for riders trying to get to Manhattan Beach?
1. stefanfisk · 1790839209 · focus · HN ↗
  Modern rail maps are inspired by electrical schematics. But the reason for their popularity is that they are generally easier to navigate.
  <a href="https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/harry-beck-revolutionised-tube-map/" rel="nofollow">https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/h...
  1. apgwoz · 1790901812 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks for the link! Very interesting!
2. leoedin · 1790850737 · focus · HN ↗
  The maps the operators use in the UK still look like digital versions of these control panels. Sometimes they're visible on screens in stations.
  In fact, there's a live online version: <a href="https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/tl-lbg-1" rel="nofollow">https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/tl-lbg-1
  1. jakzurr · 1790892067 · focus · HN ↗
    Wow, updated while I was looking at it. And the cross-overs remind me of Transportation Tycoon.
krige · 1790834131 · focus · HN ↗
These very distinctly remind me of electric/electronic didactic "toys" from the at least 80s. Plastic cubes, containing a single (usually) circuit component, like switches, resistors, lights, coils, or just wire, with bare metal connectors on relevant sides and a symbol on top. You got a whole bag of them, as well as a gridded board you inserted the cubes into. Could make even usable stuff like simple radios.
1. MomsAVoxell · 1790842625 · focus · HN ↗
  Denshi blocks:
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block
  Still got mine.
  In Japan the company made professional versions for students - they were a bit bigger and more robust, but the same basic concept.
  1. krige · 1790843293 · focus · HN ↗
    Not the one I had in mind, but very similar and definitely much cooler looking. The kits like these are still made and sold in various countries.
    ceejayoz · 1790852224 · focus · HN ↗
    One of my kiddos loved SnapCircuits. Similar, but more kid friendly.
    <a href="https://elenco.com/snapcircuits/" rel="nofollow">https://elenco.com/snapcircuits/
    krige · 1790856546 · focus · HN ↗
    Went around the internets to find the one I thought of and while I can't find it - doesn't surprise me - it was something very much like a cross between Denshi Block (connectors) and Braun Lectron (aesthetics)
    <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectron" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectron
    jakzurr · 1790891354 · focus · HN ↗
    I like the readability of those.
    MomsAVoxell · 1790928035 · focus · HN ↗
    Gakken made Denshi variants, including one that looks a bit like the Lectron for students in Japan:
    <a href="https://www.petervis.com/electronics-lab/denshi-block-series/denshi-block.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.petervis.com/electronics-lab/denshi-block-series...
    And:
    <a href="https://axel.as-1.co.jp/asone/maker/MH17083/" rel="nofollow">https://axel.as-1.co.jp/asone/maker/MH17083/
looperhacks · 1790836500 · focus · HN ↗
> And I believe this was a way to annotate that something was… fixed, maybe? Or on its way to being fixed?
A "Rotte" is the crew working on railway construction. So I assume this is a label to warn that personnel is on the tracks
1. RavuAlHemio · 1790842003 · focus · HN ↗
  To add to this, those signalling panels (SpDr is the series, I think) work on the principle “from where to were”: you hold down the button for the signal that is showing red, then press the button for the track you want to direct the train to. The system then checks if that doesn’t cross an already-configured path of another train (if so, it refuses to do anything), then sets the relevant track switches as required and finally changes the light on the signal.
  The marker is on one of the destination buttons to remind the signaller not to send any trains there, because that might endanger the people working there.
voidUpdate · 1790837847 · focus · HN ↗
Does anyone know how these actually worked under the hood? Was it essentially just a mounting solution, and you wire them up how you need on the back, or were they essentially pluggable modules with some kind of control system attached to the board? I can't imagine it's the second option, given the timeframe, but I kinda want to see a system like that now
1. cwillu · 1790842147 · focus · HN ↗
  The former, although there is usually some system with change control documentation for the actual rat's nest behind the panel; the panel mounts themselves can be remarkably modular with swappable and stackable contact switches, etc.
2. digital_af · 1790843868 · focus · HN ↗
  The actual logic (mechanical relays, timers, potentiometers and the like - analog modular setups built by electricians) would have sat in an electronics cabinet separately from the dashboard, which itself would have had simple lightbulbs, dials and buttons.
3. Gibbon1 · 1790847067 · focus · HN ↗
  Commonly these components were modular just based on some of the ones I've handled decades ago.
  Imagine a configurable rotary switch.
  You have the knob part available in a selection of styles and colors.
  You have the switch body, which can come in different types, single pole, two pole, NC, NO ext. One I saw you could stack them.
  Then you had a basemount with terminal connections, screw, solder, etc.
  I've handled decade encoders, stackable numbered encoders. The more convenient ones the the computer could read the selected numbers like you do keyboard matrix.
  Peek 1960-70s industrial design. Still available.
  <a href="https://www.digikey.com/en/products/category/configurable-switch-components/2076" rel="nofollow">https://www.digikey.com/en/products/category/configurable-sw...
4. someonebaggy · 1790857806 · focus · HN ↗
  They're mechanically modular. They don't automatically get data somehow. After assembling the control board to your liking, you still have to wire each individual component.
5. red_admiral · 1790869829 · focus · HN ↗
  The German signalling is built around _Fahrstrassen_, literally 'roads to drive on'. Each one has a start and end point, and the station designer comes up with the ones to implement like 'from entry signal X to platform 1'. These 'roads' are usually a strict subset of the physically possible settings of all the switches.
  In the old mechanical lever boxes, there were three kinds of levers: 'elements' (switches, derailers, gates), 'roads' and signals. To let a train move along a road, you first had to set all its elements correctly, and the road lever would only unlock when this was done. Pulling the road lever would also lock the associated elements in place. Then, you could 'open' the signal lever associated with the road, which is only unlocked when the road lever is pulled.
  The interface in the page is built of modular components for elements and signals, which behind the scenes are connected to 'road' circuits. You select a road by holding the button at the start and pressing the one at the end. This tries to set up all elements along the road correctly, locks them electrically (with relays) if this succeeds, and then switches the signal at the start of the road. Obviously, the safety property is that you cannot set a road (or an individual element) while it is locked by another road, and no two roads can ever conflict with each other.
  Of course, there are 'emergency overrides' for when components are malfunctioning, and strict protocols for using them - for example, not this way: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Aibling_rail_accident" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Aibling_rail_accident
shauniel · 1790838139 · focus · HN ↗
Does anyone still sell cheap standardized modular components like these to make your own dashboards, etc??
heeen2 · 1790844107 · focus · HN ↗
I wonder if those end up on ebay? What would even be a term to search for?
frnz · 1790845579 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
euroderf · 1790848445 · focus · HN ↗
Helsinki has one on display in the mid-level concourse of the Hakaniemi metro station. Sadly, it has no blinking lights.
1. someonebaggy · 1790857896 · focus · HN ↗
  A lot of train systems are still using their original control systems because they work. In some cases the signal levers (that mechanically interlock and mechanically control the tracks) are connected to motors so that a new system can remote-control the old system. Tom Scott covered this in the UK.
polyterative · 1790850795 · focus · HN ↗
One of the most beautiful things I ever saw.
Gravityloss · 1790858142 · focus · HN ↗
These designs seem so honest. Ie the maker really tries to communicate to the user.
Compare to most modern UI:s that are all about demos and looks and actually hostile towards users. I can't know what direction is hot and cold in the shower because it's light gray on silver.
1. red_admiral · 1790869910 · focus · HN ↗
  They're for safety-critical systems, so UI design is taken more seriously - as you can still see in aircraft and railway systems.
  1. pseudohadamard · 1790913706 · focus · HN ↗
    Didn't one of the US fighters used in the Pacific have its cockpit controls redesigned in the middle of the war? Something is telling me it was the P-40, but I'm pretty hazy on it.
2. idiotsecant · 1790874531 · focus · HN ↗
  Industrial HMIs are still exactly as focused on communicating important info as old relay logic systems were
3. adrianmonk · 1790885238 · focus · HN ↗
  A good industrial designer makes it about the user. A bad industrial designer makes it about themselves, the manufacturer, etc.
4. pseudohadamard · 1790913461 · focus · HN ↗
  If it was done with computers there'd be a skinnable interface, and buttons would change from round to square corners and back again every six months, the messages would be light-purple-on-slightly-darker-purple, and the control panel would be at the top, then the bottom, then the left, then the right, and eventually dockable, as time went by.
  Also one day you'd walk in and none of the displays or controls would be the same any more and you'd have experienced your first UI refresh of many more to come.
locitra · 1790862355 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
haroldopina · 1790863539 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
RunSet · 1790866151 · focus · HN ↗
".avif" format rears its ugly head.
<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/webp-image-converter/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/webp-image-co...
red_admiral · 1790868156 · focus · HN ↗
> I do imagine these panels must have been interactive with all the buttons?
"Spurplan" (roughly "track plan") signalling control panel. To allow a train from point A to point B, you hold down the button at A and then press B. If there's no conflicts, it will set the switches along the way, lock the route (so you can't set a route that interferes) and then "open the signal", as they say in German, at point A.
This was a customizable system built out of standard components, which served its purpose well for a long time. Point your favorite translation tool at <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaisstellwerk" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaisstellwerk for more details, or <a href="http://www.stellwerke.de/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stellwerke.de/ if you want to go down a rabbit hole.
> Rotte [And I believe this was a way to annotate that something was… fixed, maybe? Or on its way to being fixed?]
Rotte = work gang. Reminder tag to not send a train down there.
1. pseudohadamard · 1790913254 · focus · HN ↗
  Ah, that explains it. I was wondering what the Luftwaffe had to do with running trains.
  (Rotte was a formation of fighters, making up a Schwarm, and then a Staffel, the standard unit of fighters during WWII).
2. boisterousness · 1790914129 · focus · HN ↗
  See it in action: In this video[1], a signaller instructs a railfan in routing a couple of trains through Swindon (UK), using such a panel.
  Shortly after the video was shot, this panel was decommissioned and removed. In 2018 it was brought back to life at the Didcot Railway Centre [2], where it continues in operation, backed by a simulator. Centre visitors can try their hand at operating the panel [3].
  The panels "utilise square tiles called ‘Dominos’, patented by a Swiss company called Integra, to construct the panel diagram. Each Domino is 40mm square and has a small section of the layout on it, such as one signal, or one set of points. Many hundreds of small Dominos are then formed into a mosaic to build up the required panel diagram." [4]
  Photo gallery [5]
  [1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76fAHAxv0Dw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76fAHAxv0Dw [2] <a href="https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/116/the-signalling-centre" rel="nofollow">https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/116/the-signa... [3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Jfm9Zqo_M" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Jfm9Zqo_M [4] <a href="https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/680/more-about-swindon-panel" rel="nofollow">https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/680/more-abou... [5] <a href="https://photos.swindonpanel.org.uk/" rel="nofollow">https://photos.swindonpanel.org.uk/
alexpotato · 1790885347 · focus · HN ↗
In the late 1990s or maybe early 2000s, there was a documentary about FedEx and they filmed inside their central operations room.
All of the planes were tracked on giant panels velcro panels that allowed you to move the plane right (aka "it's moving to the next time slot") or up/down (aka " to another route").
The presenter asked why they hadn't switched to computers and the FedEx employee was saying they were considering it but the current system was working very well for them.
This, in turn, reminds me of this article about the Baghdad stock exchange going from chalkboards to computers. I believe they quote the head of the exchange saying something like "chalk is impervious to power outages but computers are faster"
<a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/Iraqi_Stock_Exchange_Trades_Chalkboards_For_Computers/1496667.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.rferl.org/a/Iraqi_Stock_Exchange_Trades_Chalkboa...

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