this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls (arstechnica.com)
submitted 9 months ago by boem to c/technology
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[–] AnUnusualRelic 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's not the first time someone comes up with the next great thing that ends up being a user interface disaster. Light pens (w/ link for the younger crowd) come to mind.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ooof. I remeber using light pens in the 80s at a dumb terminal at my local library to find books. It was painful...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Anyone remembers dumb terminals?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Dumb terminals were extremely prevelant throughout the 80s and into the early-mid 90s. Most people just didn't know that they were "dumb terminals" and either just thought they were early desktop computers or just heard them referred to as a "terminal". That same library didn't update their dumb terminals to actual computers until the mid 90s, but they did however remove the light pen in favor of a keyboard at some point well before then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This is Lenny. Most users probably do. Good percentage still have a few. A few of us make new ones now and then.

(Technically not dumb ones, though. And completely excluding terminal emulators, which are of course ubiquitous.)

[–] stoly 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh boy, forgot about those. Every school library used one to read a barcode.