Reading the comments it seems many people are in awe of the physical/analog meters and switches. Most the vessels sailing the oceans worldwide have similar looking controlrooms at the present time.
As a former maritime engineer (advanced plumber at sea) I also would like to add that these physical/analog systems are in fact much more reliable and problems are easier to isolate. Please also keep in mind that at the locations where these controlrooms are implemented, the operators usually have more experience with mechanical stuff than PLC I/O's (those are done by contractors more often than not)
The digital dials also don’t give us the drama in the movies of tapping and unsticking the indicator to reveal the crisis situation. Although I wonder how common that cliché is in real life.
Indeed. Had a little surgery under general anesthesia a while ago. Shortly before that time Hewlett-Packard ran adverts in the mainstream press about Windows on Itanium, with that hospital as flagship case.
Was my 2nd general anesthesia only, so i've been a little nervous because i don't like to be 'switched off'.
Anyways, been in the preparation room on that rolling stretcher thing, got some IVs and electrodes while looking around.
All very modern, many, many flat panel displays mounted on swivel arms from down the ceiling, showing and beeping my vital signs. Interesting for biofeedback, i thought.
Got the mask on, got asked how i feel: 'pleasantly light'.
Then all the beeping died, and all the screens froze. No reset, bluescreen, static or other unusual stuff. Just frozen.
Heard a loud 'SHIT!' from behind, and the clacking of running shoes on the tiles. Clacking shoes came back in an instant and rewired me to some shoebox-thing covered in orange rubber with some mini-displays, knobs and sliders.
'How do you feel now?' i've been asked...
Lifting the mask i only growled: 'very confidence inspiring...'
'Sleep deep sweety!' was the last thing i heard.
Afterwards i had a surreal night at the 20ieth floor or so,
with hot and cold shivers running up and down my spine and the harbour in my view.
Anyways, next morning i asked the surgeon if i hallucinated that, and she answered: No, you didn't. But it was a first!
I LOLd hard.
edit: It had to happen this way/to me, because all my life i've been an open-source fanboi.
Tapping the barometric altimeter (and other pressure sensors, but altimeter the most) had been driven hard into me and my friends when training on gliders. Can get you hundreds meters difference lower, and suddenly you find that yes, you're lower than you thought.
one is watching all the readings together which "make sense".
If one reading is out from where it should be relative to the others (for the given load/condition) it is investigated immediately so anomalies don't usually go unnoticed.
One gets a sense.. a feeling for the whole.. like a simulation running in your own head to feel whats going on as well.
As a former maritime engineer (advanced plumber at sea) I also would like to add that these physical/analog systems are in fact much more reliable and problems are easier to isolate. Please also keep in mind that at the locations where these controlrooms are implemented, the operators usually have more experience with mechanical stuff than PLC I/O's (those are done by contractors more often than not)