i mean, to be fair, indirectly trusting people to do the right thing by doing things via "honor system" was never possible in an industry that runs on distrust.
that being said, people using AI to scam all the things is getting super old
For a time I wrote code for BMS/BAS systems for many prominent commercial buildings in the NYC area, control rooms in basements and on rooftops and all the secret in-between rooms, in-between. (A fascinating job not without its exposure to asbestos, among other hazards.)
And, as someone born and raised in the south, I was thoroughly enamored with this ubiquitous font that implied the seriousness and purpose of each control implement, to include the priority of the functionality said implement represented, on countless panels I engaged with.
This deep dive was pleasing to my soul and I'm immensely thankful to the author for taking the time (and the photos) to indulge in traversing this wormhole for us.
> it also facilitates legibility, especially at a slight distance, as well as distortion (squishing, stretching) if necessary
Except for the terrible, terrible ‘0’, which looks more or less identical to the ‘O’. IIRC sometimes similar fonts had a strike-through 0 for legibility; I think the BBC Micro keyboard did, for instance.
The BBC Micro keycaps were made by Comptec (mentioned in the article) in Gorton Modified. Source: I work at signature plastics and have seen the original tooling for it.
