It's not specific to the Soviet world, any control room built before computers looks like that. The examples I'm familiar with is nuclear power plants from the 70s:
I'm sure their's plenty of other control rooms in the same style, for subways, water networks, electricity grid, train networks, scattered around the western world.
Very true. It reminds me of the aesthetic[1] of German musician Hainbach[2]'s studio.
He makes use of a lot of early test equipment. The look is very functional but not ugly. It's not colourful but everything is well made because it's made for professionals.
> It's not colourful but everything is well made because it's made for professionals.
Nuclear plants, planes, etc use colour so you can differentiate very quickly under pressure. Much easier to shout "THE RED BUTTON!!!" than "The second button five down from the left!"
Sorry to break a myth, but you'll never hear someone about “THE RED BUTTON ” in a nuclear control room. There's way too much buttons that happens to be red for that.
Nuclear operators are highly trained professionals (two years of training in France, for instance) who know their machine by heart, so what you'll hear will be much more specific like “isolate vapor generator number 3”. Also, the way it's organized it will very rarely be orders, but instead description if what each of them are doing while following the safety procedure, to keep other crew members aware of what they're doing.
So no “Press that god damn red button!” but instead “I'm bypassing turbine through GCTA and moving to step 342.B.3”.
I'm pretty sure it's just the old photo look (plus the fact that in the current version, part of the space have been colonized by computers, which kind of ruins the mood).
As always, big industrial control rooms look amazing. But wow, that way of showing ads is one of the worst I've ever seen. (I really do need adblock on mobile ig)
Each time I see beauty in old machinery I think about the recent IEEE article that started with something like "AI designs aren't limited by outdated concepts like simplicity and aesthetics." and remember that there is someone that goes to a museum and sees inefficiences and time wasted on unnecessary detail instead of inspiration.
Having worked on SCADA software in the past, I find the evolution of the control room UX fascinating.
You can see in these pictures, where every input and output is a real physical thing, just how much density of information was required for Operators to process. As we moved to computer screens representing the same, those original screens would represent these control room layouts faithfully (and you can understand why, training an operator must have taken ages; retraining is not palatable).
Over time, multiple “control rooms” coalesced into one room of computer screens with fewer operators and yet an exponential increase in information to process. So how on earth can a person keep track of it all? Intervene promptly when things go wrong? Determine what needs attention right now vs something that can wait? As a problem space, the seemingly simply world of designing SCADA UI is quite fascinating.
I always wonder when I see a picture of a cockpit of an airplane how many meters there are. Don't know why they need so many, what meters do you need to fly a plane?
It's not specific to the Soviet world, any control room built before computers looks like that. The examples I'm familiar with is nuclear power plants from the 70s:
- here's Bugey, the oldest active nuclear plant in France: https://cdn-s-www.leprogres.fr/images/5A6732BE-29F9-43FA-806...
- And here's Dampierre, the second oldest, which I was lucky enough to visit: https://www.larep.fr/photoSRC/Gw--/centrale-nucleaire-indust...
I'm sure their's plenty of other control rooms in the same style, for subways, water networks, electricity grid, train networks, scattered around the western world.
Very true. It reminds me of the aesthetic[1] of German musician Hainbach[2]'s studio.
He makes use of a lot of early test equipment. The look is very functional but not ugly. It's not colourful but everything is well made because it's made for professionals.
I see the same thing in mid-century BBC studios.
--
1. Which I love.
2. https://www.hainbachmusik.com/
> It's not colourful but everything is well made because it's made for professionals.
Nuclear plants, planes, etc use colour so you can differentiate very quickly under pressure. Much easier to shout "THE RED BUTTON!!!" than "The second button five down from the left!"
Nuclear plants are also famously used as the canonical examples of bad UI in teaching.
To paraphrase, the Three Mile Island Disaster because the operators couldn't discern the right red light in a sea of other lights and noise.
https://uxdesign.cc/three-mile-island-how-bad-ux-led-to-a-nu...
Sorry to break a myth, but you'll never hear someone about “THE RED BUTTON ” in a nuclear control room. There's way too much buttons that happens to be red for that.
Nuclear operators are highly trained professionals (two years of training in France, for instance) who know their machine by heart, so what you'll hear will be much more specific like “isolate vapor generator number 3”. Also, the way it's organized it will very rarely be orders, but instead description if what each of them are doing while following the safety procedure, to keep other crew members aware of what they're doing.
So no “Press that god damn red button!” but instead “I'm bypassing turbine through GCTA and moving to step 342.B.3”.
There is a specific Soviet design sensibility in the post in question that is lacking in those images.
I'm pretty sure it's just the old photo look (plus the fact that in the current version, part of the space have been colonized by computers, which kind of ruins the mood).
This reminds me of "Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green":
[0] https://bethmathews.substack.com/p/why-so-many-control-rooms...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518960
I love these!
Highly relevant: "Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green"
Link: https://bethmathews.substack.com/p/why-so-many-control-rooms...
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518960 (3 months ago)
As always, big industrial control rooms look amazing. But wow, that way of showing ads is one of the worst I've ever seen. (I really do need adblock on mobile ig)
Firefox mobile + ublock origin is the way.
Each time I see beauty in old machinery I think about the recent IEEE article that started with something like "AI designs aren't limited by outdated concepts like simplicity and aesthetics." and remember that there is someone that goes to a museum and sees inefficiences and time wasted on unnecessary detail instead of inspiration.
Having worked on SCADA software in the past, I find the evolution of the control room UX fascinating.
You can see in these pictures, where every input and output is a real physical thing, just how much density of information was required for Operators to process. As we moved to computer screens representing the same, those original screens would represent these control room layouts faithfully (and you can understand why, training an operator must have taken ages; retraining is not palatable).
Over time, multiple “control rooms” coalesced into one room of computer screens with fewer operators and yet an exponential increase in information to process. So how on earth can a person keep track of it all? Intervene promptly when things go wrong? Determine what needs attention right now vs something that can wait? As a problem space, the seemingly simply world of designing SCADA UI is quite fascinating.
(2018)
Previously,eg:
2022, 139 points, 99 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30581867
2020, 677 points, 268 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334339
Etc
I always wonder when I see a picture of a cockpit of an airplane how many meters there are. Don't know why they need so many, what meters do you need to fly a plane?
Some of the consoles had neon tubes for number display. They emit warm orange lights when triggered by ~300Vdc.