51–60 of 65 posts
I always thought it was a bad visual metaphor for open vs closed circuit
But not he says it conveys 1 and 0... so simple... true or false. That would have been easier on my brains :)
No, the one-inside-a-circle symbol does not indicate a toggle between off and on, as this article "surmises". Instead, it indicates stands by . This is off, but not fully off as a circle would suggest. It's nearly on. The symbol is great for that. On a push button it means activate stand by or come back out of it (i.e., turn back on fully). Still fair enough. Unfortunately, this knowledge has watered down over time.…
> No, the one-inside-a-circle symbol does not indicate a toggle between off and on, as this article "surmises". According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol#Standards , "one inside a circle", IEC 60417-5010, is a fully-on/fully-off toggle. The "one breaking a circle" symbol, IEC 60417-5009, is a fully-on/standby toggle.
I wish designers might fall back on that more for ease of use instead of creating generation after generation of arcane, fleetingly extant symbols.
Am I the only one who can still never remember which one is which?
But here you are: cast them to booleans. 1/0 -> true/false
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No, the one-inside-a-circle symbol does not indicate a toggle between off and on, as this article "surmises". According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol#Standards , "one inside a circle", IEC 60417-5010, is a fully-on/fully-off toggle. The "one breaking a circle" symbol, IEC 60417-5009, is a fully-on/standby toggle.
Agreed but the "one breaking a circle" stand by symbol, IEC 60417-5009, is what the article seemed to be referring to by "one inside a circle", given the pictures shown. I just copied their imprecise description.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then there's standard walls switch in Europe, which works whichever way the electrician happened to wire it. And then, existence of "stair switches"[0] means you can't ever rely on directionality being consistent. Now, let's talk about water faucets and which side is hot, and which one is cold... -- [0] - Don't know what the formal way for these are; I'm thinking of two switches hooked up in a XOR pattern to the same…
> Don't know what the formal way for these are These are called "three-way switches" in the US.
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> bad icons are far worse than no icons Yes. Cars used to have words like "OIL" or "TEMP" or "BRAKE" or "SEAT BELT" in the dashboad warning lights. That switched to icons, probably as a cost-savings so they could use the same parts worldwide. But at a cost in clarity. Now that most new car dashboards have programmable LCD displays or at least a message area, better/more descriptive fault descriptions have returned.
They also picked really bad designs for the icons. The flat tire warning looks like a boiling cauldron. Even I could have designed a 10X better icon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Don't know what the formal way for these are These are called "three-way switches" in the US.
Oddly named, as they only have two switches in the circuit.
...or so I was taught, but that explanation always seemed a little dubious to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, a perfect circle would almost never strike me as a zero.
The difference between perfect circle, 'o', 'O' and '0' is contextual, since the shape of all four of them is approximately the same. On their own, the characters themselves are often ambiguous in print, and totally ambiguous in handwriting.