Where's the consistency friends?
:geordi-no: primitive space capitalism
:geordi-yes: advanced space communism
When they made star trek we didn't realize touch screens are without a doubt the worst way to control a computer while sitting down. We only put up with them because they let us have smaller devices in our pockets.
I've got a touchscreen at a workplace where i'm always standing and i end up using the mouse 90% of the time because touchscreens are just kinda shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J57fi-Lic4U
I'd like my LCARS based GUI supercomputer now please.
I'd agree that for general office work LCARS is probably not optimal but remember that people don't usualy type anymore. I can't remember a single time someone was actually typing on a keyboard. A lot of the complex tasks are done though contextualized voice commands and anything that must be recorded is just dictated e.g logs, reports.
I think mouse and kb would still be used just not standard just like people in Japan/China are losing the ability to write characters with pen and paper because it is used so little.
I think it would be much less like a mouse and keyboard and much more like an airplane cockpit in that case. Specialized purposes.
The usefulness of a button, switch, knob, what have you that does one thing that you can find by muscle memory without even looking is not to be understated. Not just anyone is going to be piloting a starship. It's going to be someone with years of training, so approachability of the UI is going to be much less important than muscle memory in that case.
I'm not alienated from the Enterprise, it belongs to all of our imaginations
anything cool about SpaceX will go into Elongated Muskrat's fucking bank account
I always felt like the touchscreen flight controls on the enterprise were lame too, sorry. The engineering screens were dope though.
Eh, I type way faster on a keyboard than I do a touchscreen, and more reliably (both with old touch screens that get used a ton by the general public and without looking). Generally, I prefer physical controls so I don't have to look at them as I count buttons across or locate my hand on a console.
I have no idea how applicable this is to privately owned space shuttles or whatever.
What's the problem with touch controls? In normal operation, the astronauts are literally just watching the computer fly the thing anyhow.
No such thing as "normal operation" when you've crammed people in a pressurised tube going several thousand miles an hour through the uppermost parts of the atmosphere. In a situation like that, always assume the worst.
If you ever need a human to take over, you want their input to be fast, precise, and reliable. A switch or button with a set dedicated task is just easier to work with than a touchscreen that can operate everything, but only after you've scrolled to the right input. And what if something blinds your astronaut? Can't navigate a smooth screen by feeling alone.
If the screen cracks, the entire thing is unusable. It's extremely bad design that is intended to look cool.
