Saturday, March 26, 2011

Relics Of An Analog World

This is a section of the radio room inside the aircraft carrier museum USS Midway in San Diego.  I've never been inside this floating airport until this week when the kids and I visited during spring break.  Although all the knobs in this panel look overwhelming, it's really very obsolete and analog.  Digital technology has afforded the modern sailor simpler GUI-based control in switching communication calls between pilots, control tower, officers and other personnel.  I would not be surprised if all the radio equipment in this room at the Midway is compressed to a single rack in the more modern Nimitz-class USS Abraham Lincoln.  Not only is digital communications systems smaller in scale but also has higher capacity (handle more phone calls) and more secure. But hey, what would a museum exhibit be without knobs to turn and switches to flip?

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