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Comment by goblinux | Hacker News Reader

Interesting seeing similar trends in industrial Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) for industrial control systems (ICS/SCADA). Is there a set of standards that maritime navigation systems follow for abnormal situation management (i.e., alarming/notifications)?

ICS is trending towards ISA101 - which is a very grayscale screen for operator control with specific colors for various alarms, events, and notifications for operators.

An interesting difference between operating ships and industrial control systems - both huge pieces of complex machinery with interconnected systems - is that humans have been operating ships without electricity, screens, and standards bodies for millennia.

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> An interesting difference between operating ships and industrial control systems [...] is that humans have been operating ships without electricity, screens, and standards bodies for millennia

On the other hand, I believe historical crew compliments were much larger.

So the "systems" one was historically commanding and communicating with on ships were often skilled people, and thus much more intelligent and capable of expert action in their particular area.

Sorry for going completely off-topic but every time I see your name, I wonder is it like Ethernet bridge zero, or like Ethereum bro, or something else? Did the Pokémon Slowbro have anything to do with the name?

I replied to @WalterBright [0] about how his username was a nice pun on Breaking Bad, because I am ignorant, to which someone replied that it was his name.

So I truncated mine for a new username, because it looks silly and reminds me to be humble. And then swapped the o for an 0 when I wanted to karma-shed.

But yes, also some of those things you mentioned. It's multi-referential.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright

Indeed. Pre-industrial seafaring was a very different enterprise. Most of the time operating ships without screens and electricity, they were also operating without motors and, for a long while, without radar or electronic navigation.

On the subject of ships without electricity, it's probably worth pointing out how dangerous Age of Sail ships would have been compared to modern ships. Right up until the last commercial sailing ships square rigged sails were raised and lowered by sending men out on the yards without safety harnesses or anything, just a footrope to stand on and another line to hold on to. As well as skill you'd need nerves of steel and a strong constitution!

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