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Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

While this article presents it in a humorous way, some air traffic control systems actually do use a diagonally rotated screen, with that "long line" being lined up with the primary approach to the airport. The setup I got to observe involved large displays that worked with stylus input.

These weren't ultra-widescreen displays; they were relatively standard aspect-ratio displays, rotated at an angle.

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I tried to google as well (like another commenter), I did find a lot of 1:1 ratio screens though; I wouldn't mind that I think.

I use a phone with a 1:1 screen. Unihertz Titan in case you're curious.

Tell us more! Why is so, is it useful?

The second question is about keyboard. Is it useful?

This is not a complaint about the phone but, God, visiting that website is a nightmare. Immediately hit with a sudden sound notification, a chat widget, a popup, and random decorations scattered all over the screen.

https://i.imgur.com/CgOMjio.png

UblockOrigin - set to default block all javascript on the website, and one gets no "sudden sound notification", no "chat widget", no "popup" and no "random decorations".

The blackberry passport had a square screen as well, I thought it was pretty great.

I was involved in the US air traffic control system upgrade in the early 90s as a software subcontractor. They were using Sony 2k square CRT monitors. If I recall correctly, they cost about $20k each - in 1990 dollars - partially due to the hardware subsystem for antialiasing.

Googling, I see that this is the replacement monitor:

https://www.aydindisplays.com/2k-x-2k-air-traffic-control-di...

Why would anyone make an LCD specifically for ATC displays!? From what I can see, it’s just an ordinary LCD monitor! Sure the 1:1 aspect ratio is a bit weird, but that’s not worth $20K…

The ability to have a redundant power supply seems like it might fill a niche

looking at the datasheet [0], it has a lot of specialized ports that I would never need, but I wouldn't be surprised if an ATC tower somewhere needed it for obscure compatibility reasons. 5x BNC for analog input, for example. also multiple serial ports for remote controls of some kind, and SNMP support.

the field-replaceable backlight seems to be a big selling point too.

0: https://440148.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/440148/A...

Typical enterprise logic: $20K for an ordinary display that can be "repaired in the field" and comes with "support", instead of $200 for a display that can be replaced in its entirety for... $200.

The $200 monitor can be replaced in its entirety but then union rules mean you need a full-time union tech to swap it out and you need a bunch of them on payroll to ensure you have 24/7 coverage vs a vendor support contract

Not just enterprise logic, but enterprise serving the public sector logic. Get those sweet, sweet tax dollars.

You should see how much medical displays are for things like looking at ultrasounds / MRI / xray images.

Biggest change in mentality I saw moving from SMB to enterprise is that in SMB I just kept bought through consumer, often on sale, sometimes used, and kept extra stock.

Enterprise as little as a 8gb sodimm is treated as un-obtainium and costs like $200 or something because it’s special compatibility tested and supported ram. I would see hundreds of 1080p monitors replaced with… hundreds of new 1080p monitors from a different vendor because management bought everything as a package deal form the vendor. The monitor was treated as an essential part of the vendors enterprise offering and one couldn’t very well use another vendors monitors with their docks.

I don't know what those LCDs cost. It was the Sony CRT that cost $20k in 1993.

I would love to see a photo of this setup.

I just scrolled through half a dozen ATC tower tour videos on YouTube and didn't see any skewed displays, but it's possible that they 1) they tidied it up for the tour, or 2) they just didn't apply this approach in those particular sites.

I'm still very interested to see this novel application.

I think most replaced them with ultra wide screens

I've been in a few airport towers in Brazil, and never seen a diagonal screen.

It may be a regional thing, or a small clique. Or it may be best for some software that is long gone.

Really, I would be pretty interested to hear your story. I've been a lot to Brazil.

It's not that interesting, I used to work inspecting airport fire-fighters. That required talking to the people on the tower.

This was more than a decade ago, and they may have moved to a different approach since then. At the time of the tour I took, ultra-widescreen monitors didn't exist.

IIRC it was a large Wacom or similar display.

Interesting. This is why I don't understand why people either choose to, or have set for them, GPS/mapping apps and run them on a device in landscape mode, IF you have the setting that "up" is the direction you are heading as opposed to "North"

Me, I want to maximize what is "ahead", not off to the sides where I'm not driving.

I learned to navigate primarily using cardinal directions, before handheld GPS was common. When I walk around a new city, I find it easier to look at google maps to figure out the cardinal direction I need to travel, as opposed to remembering a series of turns that are relative to each other.

That’s assuming the sun is out or a compass is available

Sure, I do too, but that's more a lay of the land thing for me. When I'm going to a specific place and I don't really care much about what's between me and it, I'll go "relative directions". I know ahead of time the ~direction I'm going, and the GPS is to tell me what's coming up, so I want it "ahead".

I guess the apps could be tweaked to do both; show cardinal direction, but put "here" near the edge of the screen that maximizes the distance forward. I suspect it's not because "here" is always on the same spot on your screen the way it is, which is a UX consideration as well.

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