For someone who isn't experienced in how Linux crashes - what currently happens when there's an error that can't be recovered from? Does the device just restart?
(The screen normally remains white on black. The console can as well be a COM port.)
You can configure it to auto-reboot by putting a timeout value to /proc/sys/kernel/panic.
I actually scrolled up to check this was not an April fools article.
Some devices have neither a serial console nor a text-mode screen powered by BIOS; all they have is a framebuffer device. There a QR code could work really well. No need to have any font data, for instance.