Before pixels: Modular industrial dashboards

Modular industrial dashboards, which have likely been replaced by software, caught the attention of the author during visits to various museums in Germany and Poland. These displays were used for air traffic control, subway or light rail monitoring, and railway operations. One example was found at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, featuring an air traffic control dashboard.

At the Fernmeldemuseum Stuttgart, these dashboards were employed to monitor subway trains and light rail systems. Another railway museum in Nuremberg exhibited a similar setup, with some modules having their plates removed. The tram museum in Stuttgart showcased a panel with an intricate typographical balance between DIN and the German Dymo equivalent.

Warsaw's train museum displayed a slightly different system with a comparable appearance. A massive industrial switch toggling between day and night was observed at the DASA Museum in Dortmund, possibly altering the system's operation or merely providing a dark mode for the panel. The author concludes with a fascination for a particularly large switch, illustrating the allure of these physical display systems that have since been largely replaced by software interfaces.