[Elecraft] The case against touch screens

[Mark Petiford]

 RE:  You assume that touch screens are inherently unreliable. Try to convince 
and F22 pilot of that, or a 777 gunnery crew.

You assume that aircraft with flat panel displays utilize touch screens.  The military aircraft I have worked (Design Engineering) that have flat panel displays do NOT utilize touch displays.  The reasons are primarily touch resolution, and stability.

Military pilots must be able to select functions while wearing heavy gloves, so they do not have great resolution as to where their touch will land.  They must also be able to reliably select functions during high G loading, both natural (turbulence) and induced (maneuvering).  Consequently, their flat displays usually consist of the main display, surrounded by hardware buttons (switches) which are separated with raised "dividers" or "walls" to separate the buttons. These buttons have small on-screen labels that change depending on which screen is being displayed.  We used to call these "soft buttons".


I could go on, but will stop with that.  While I love the modern flat screen color displays (my uBITX will have one soon),  I must side with Wayne in that the functions that must be addressed when time is critical (can't remember how Wayne described it) should be hard buttons or "soft buttons" noted above).

Mark,
KE6BB



    On Monday, March 25, 2019, 8:45:26 AM PDT, Doug Person <doug at kj0f.com> wrote:  
 
 You assume that touch screens are inherently unreliable. Try to convince 
and F22 pilot of that, or a 777 gunnery crew. There is so much military 
hardware that is dependent on touch screens that your argument just 
doesn't hold up. This technology is decades old now. You may find some 
poorly designed stuff that is unreliable. But, its due to poor design - 
both physically and in software. Hopefully, if there is a touch screen 
K4, the K3s will stay around for those that prefer buttons and switches.

Doug -- KJ0F