I agree it's really aesthetic (I love the circle arrangements with indicator lights occurring in several in them, I assume it's something reactor related). Are such control rooms still made today, or is it all digital screens?
A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
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Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#32I've operated in boiler room offices at large plants for almost 40 years, the mimic panel is a very valuable tool. With miles of piping carrying water and steam for various reasons, the panels help keep it all straight in your mind. These panels are in hospitals, chemical plants, data centers, Navy ships and subs and many other places similar to where I work. I can't imagine what it feels like to work in a nuke facil…
Working with some SCADA control unit in a factory right now. It’s all digital and keeps changing configuration. Wish there were physical buttons.
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#33I agree it's really aesthetic (I love the circle arrangements with indicator lights occurring in several in them, I assume it's something reactor related). Are such control rooms still made today, or is it all digital screens?
Remind me of Homer Simpson working at the Springfield nuclear site
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#34Can you even imagine how relaxing it would be to have the same interface to your systems, every day, with all the parts in one physical location and never moving? Learn it once, then nothing changes for years and years, or if it does it's usually adding on, not replacing or re-arranging existing stuff? Man, that would be nice.
Use boring software. Software that releases every few months instead of weeks or even days. Software that is well documented and has an active supportive community.
Works when you're picking the software. Less so in most companies where you spend 75% of your time interacting with half-broken, constantly-changing, barely-interoperable programs and web-services that someone else chose.
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#35Can you even imagine how relaxing it would be to have the same interface to your systems, every day, with all the parts in one physical location and never moving? Learn it once, then nothing changes for years and years, or if it does it's usually adding on, not replacing or re-arranging existing stuff? Man, that would be nice.
Learn vi/vim/nvim. Interface hasn't changed much since 1976 (first version of vi).
I think a modal editor is somewhat at odds with an HMI consisting of dedicated, physical controls.
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#36I worked at a fusion company and would have loved to be involved in the control room design. People generally aren't interested in designing rooms like this. People are happy with just big monitors at desks likely displaying hard to interact with interfaces that are ever changing. One engineer even wanted to install physical barriers to keep people away from stations.
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#37Can you even imagine how relaxing it would be to have the same interface to your systems, every day, with all the parts in one physical location and never moving? Learn it once, then nothing changes for years and years, or if it does it's usually adding on, not replacing or re-arranging existing stuff? Man, that would be nice.
Especially if the interface was designed for high performance (unlike most UX today).
One of my favorite was when I spent years starting to learn photojournalism on the side: the mechanics of using a camera is only a small part of it (it's mostly about understanding and conveying a story), but even at my student/amateur level, the muscle memory with pro DSLR and lenses was crazy-effective.
I even got a shot that happened only in an instant, unexpected, perceived in my peripheral vision, and the right camera body (I had 2 hanging from shoulders) was suddenly in my hands, viewfinder to my eye, aimed, zoomed in with my 70-200 focal length ring, focused (I might've even used the wheel to select which AF focus point, before half-pressing the shutter button), and snapped-- without consciously intending to do any of those things, so it all seemed to be instantaneous, and I got the shot of something as it was falling.
Had I only had a touchscreen phone/camera or a bottom-end DSLR (on which some brands intentionally cripple the UI, to avoid cannibalizing pro gear sales), I would've looked very dumb as I didn't get the shot.
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#38Who spotted the GitHub commit graph towards the end of the page? Looks like they were busy.
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#39We still have control rooms like this (I think in use) in Tasmania Australia. They sometimes have open days for our Hydro Power Plants, and they are some of the most interesting tours around. The one I visited was like using a time machine to travel back to the age of Art Deco. Obviously some more modern control systems have been added, but the Art Deco vibe is still there!
Re: A collection of Soviet control rooms (2017)
#40Soviet control rooms and CRAY-1 aesthetics is what's missing in my life