Todd Lappin, MAKE contributor and current guest blogger on Dinosaurs and Robots, has a strange collection compulsion that I don’t share, but I can totally understand. He has a control panel fetish. Hey, now. Don’t judge. Everybody is wired differently. Todd just happens to be wired to toggle switches, panel lights, and needle gauges. And he’s not alone. There’s an active Control Panel Flickr group, to which Todd just *happens* to be the most active contributor. In his D+R post, he drools all over this Titan 2 missile guidance console some guy found at a surplus store.
11 thoughts on “ICBM control panel pr0n”
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It’s “ICBM” — not ICMB
And I’m pretty sure he “drools” over the pics – not “drolls”
one more mistake and I’m kicking it down a letter grade
I used to be a tour guide at a hydro electric dam.
And I do admit to miss the excellent control panels.
Ouch. Thanks for the typos catch.
The moral of that story is: don’t blog right after getting out of the doctor’s office.
Gareth, I always thought you were one of the cool kids. Having found out that you DON’T have a control panel fetish, I’m not so sure now. I am sure that those control panels would look great in my living room.
I didn’t say I didn’t find them oddly… compelling. I mean, I wouldn’t kick one out of MY living room. And, I AM a member of the Flickr group. So, let’s just say I have crush on control panels.
Now… needle gauges! There I lust.
(Okay, this discussion has officially turned nerdcore.)
NERRRRRRRRRDS!!!
The Roches so unapologetically sing:
“I’m so glad I am one!”
I always liked the eaton 10 series switch. They make a solid *clack*.
If you like control panels, wait until you see what my buddy Duane and I are doing at the USS Midway Museum in San Diego… I’ll post when it’s done.
(For the record, Duane is saving my bacon on this in a huge way. If it wasn’t for him, it would be half-done at best.)
Looks almost exactly like the control panel on the AN/TPS-63 Radars I maintain.
What I really want to know is what surplus store. My local one has lot pretend surplus new junk, a little from Sweden and Eastern Europe, and that’s about it. I want to know about one where I can find this kinda shit.