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From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: The controls
Message-ID: <568@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 23:10:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.568
Posted: Fri Jul 12 23:10:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Jul-85 08:22:09 EDT
References: <2138@sdcc6.UUCP>
Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 22

In article <2138@sdcc6.UUCP> ix925@sdcc6.UUCP (Steve Lau) writes:
>	Has anyone noticed the LACK of controls 
>on board the Enterprise? For such a complex ship, you
>would think that there would be a lot more controls
>then they have. My only explanation for this and for
>the lack of labels is that maybe the controls had more
>then one use. ...
>I say that instead of taking up so
>much room, they would automatically switch the same
>controls to stuff like monitoring navigation, warp
>engines etc. If they did label them, it would be
>confusing and would take up a lot of space. 

Even is this ancient, archaic day and age we have software labelable
switches, generally by putting LED or LCD arrays below a knob or switch
or whatever.  I think that this would not be a lost technology.  I
suspect that this was just simplicity for the set designers; they
didn't have to invent labels for the controls, most of which are never
used.
		Ken Arnold

		Ken