Ignoring the Morse Code radio station, in the context of those banks of instruments and controls... each individual readout can be done cheaper and more reliably in software, but doing everything in software means one or two LCD screens.
Will it ever be wall-sized banks of screens covered in eInk displays as standard industrial controls? Will it skip straight past that to Augmented Reality?
Had an interesting conversation with someone who used to run a radio shack and now works for one of the few remaining 'screwdriver shops' (PC shop).
If I understood it, her theory was basically that radio shack wouldn't come back because the size of components nowadays is too small.
And its funny you mention touchscreen. Because I bought a mechanical switch from her to do a DIY Mod on a 20 year old car. It was pretty simple and worked well. But this car also had a touch screen that was extremely anti-DIY friendly. These screens tend to get 'burnt' by the sun after 20+ years and stop working correctly. The typical fix for this screen is complete replacement or extremely complex repair via mail. Parts won't be available forever and the whole thing is closed source and incredibly hard to reverse engineer.
Will it ever be wall-sized banks of screens covered in eInk displays as standard industrial controls? Will it skip straight past that to Augmented Reality?