If Microsoft Made Cars | Hacker News Reader

If Microsoft Made Cars

hcs.harvard.edu

40 pointsluke2m25 comments

> 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

I've always felt that cars are already like this. I don't know much about cars, but I know that there's a wide range of conditions that can cause the "check engine" light to be lit, all of varying degrees of severity. If computers were like cars, instead of an error dialog with a googlable error code, a single "check computer" light would appear on your keyboard, and you'd need a $100 hardware debugger to find out what actually happened.

God forbid your computer suffers a second error while the "check computer" light is on. You'd never know because there's only one light.

Yes the CEL is worthless, but OBD is very informational and a reader isn't really that expensive. A modern car ECU can tell you things like a specific cylinder misfire, so you can check that spark plug etc. If my motherboard is fucked it's probably just giving some incredibly generic error.

Most people aren't going to google error codes. "Power users" can get an ODB cable for ten bucks if they aren't willing to shell out for a bluetooth reader.

The debug information provided by modern cars over ODB tends to be incredibly specific, but rather easy to interpret.

Any more that seems to be the direction computers are going. I recall a time when most error messages, while obtuse, actually did give you a clue as to what went wrong. Nowadays it seems that if anything goes wrong you just get a variation of ":( Software has did a whoopsie! Our bad. Please try again". Even logs, where they exist, often have nothing useful in them. It makes it much more maddening to troubleshoot everything.

Not all, but definitely some of it rings to a Tesla :-I

Autopilot - A thing that is advertised to "fully drive itself", but keep your hands on the wheel and pretend you are driving and take over a fraction of a second before you crash....

Buttons? - oh we replaced it all with this one Giant screen - take a look at this glorious screen instead of focusing on the road. Tactile buttons? oh they are so old - we are the disruptors. Even better, lets just change the round steering wheel to a yoke - why? because we want to disrupt!!

Your car is predictable and you know what it is doing? Let us give you over the air updates to the critical parts of the car. You better hope that we didn't change any behaviour, or that you didn't miss that change in your terms and conditions...

I am big fan of all the engineering successes that Tesla brought to the table. But, they also made some non sensible choices along the way, that I'd rather not risk it....

I appreciate the criticism of the tesla, albeit a bit gentle. The Bollinger might interest you:

https://bollingermotors.com/

I love Bollinger's design ethos, and I wish I could fantasize about someday owning one - but that $125K price tag! I'll never want to own any vehicle that badly.

I couldn't possibly find fault in that, but find it extremely mysterious and frustrating that the desire for a quality, analog, no nonsense single-purpose system, ie vehicle, isn't adequate to drive the market toward more affordable versions of the Bollinger. I read a while back that Honda intends to eliminate touchscreens and return to tactile controls for future models, which indicates at least some interest in reasonable vehicles. I hope it's enough to retain at least one option in the future for something not designed for children.

I love the passthrough and ground clearance.

But the windows are manual crank only? That's just cheap/lazy. A $125k car but I can't lower the rear windows or maybe the passenger window from the driver's seat?

> 10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off."

Looks like this actually came true for cars.

> Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

Now I wonder how much that would apply early cars. Did you have to re-learn all the controls before? I'm sure they were not standardized from the beginning. In that sense, Windows is an early car and cannot really be blamed for trying new things (most likely they are referring to the 3.x -> 95 UI revamp).

Definitely. The Model T had the throttle and timing controls on the steering column and three pedals: gear selector (left), reverse (middle), and brake (right). And starting it wasn't a simple process either.

also the carburetor dial on the dash to adjust the fuel mix, and the extra gear shift lever on the left if you have a Ruckstell axle :)

I drive a 2004 Lexus LS 430 and I just purchased a 2008 Ford F150 XL. I also use a flip phone, and listen to music on vinyl and my 5 disc CD changer. The more I have gone into the deep end on tech from a career standpoint, the more I crave the simple things. Or at least a simpler way to live my life that doesn't involve a screen.

The missing punchline: "And, if those lousy, infuriating Microsoft cars cost only $25, most of us would buy them"

This is so tame, 20 years later.

11. Fuel door button is shipped with a big warning "in a future update button will be moved to a new home." that takes up more space than the button itself.

12. Restarts are forced.

13. Time is correct, but weather is from a faraway place.

I think the first time I saw this was a chain email in the late 90s.

I'd spend even more of my life in Excel...

Broken link? Was it taken down?

I wonder if it was anything like the video if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

It was an old text (from the 90s?):

https://web.archive.org/web/20210318102046/http://www.hcs.ha...

Yes- maybe early aughts. I remember this one going around in a chain email circa 02.

Seems to load about half the time. Refresh if it fails.

I initially thought it’s on purpose, indicating that car would fail with 404 lol

No, y'all just crashed it :)

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