Just to nitpick, in the section after "On the other side, these following guards are more of a “you really shouldn’t do this” variety – much closer to a disabled state in graphical user interfaces:"
The second and third examples are safety lockouts [0] working as intended: Some system is locked in the off state to ensure safe access for technicians.
Especially the padlock lockout is simple and effective: As long as you have the key in your pocket, you can be sure than no one is going to turn on the meat grinder you are cleaning.
Very interesting timing: a few days ago I created one in OpenSCAD for myself and my... daughter (not named "Molly" though) would accidentally hit my PC's power button all too often while plugging in a USB device.
For the power button is located next to two USB ports I use and, for whatever reason and although it's a very good PC tower, the button is ultra sensitive.
So I created a "not-molly guard" that "plugs" into the two audio jacks (which I never use and which are, also, next to the power button) and that only leaves a narrow hole and a guardrail of a few millimeters.
Printing it in black, matching the tower's lip where the power button is, and life is good. Already hit that Molly guard several times by mistake so I figured out I already saved more time than it took to design it.
As it's a small piece, it printed in a few minutes on the 3D printer.
P.S: AFAICT there's no software setting (?) to prevent the power button from doing what it does!? But who cares, I've got the Molly guard now.
The hover images were delightful thank you for that little bit of whimsy. Also the iTunes Burn CD one was my favorite! I totally forgot about that and its so fun compared to flat design.
The STOP and RESET buttons are from a Documation card reader.[1] They're not guarded. They just come from a standard kit of buttons and lamps where you could assemble the components and dividers into a control panel. That style of illuminated push button was once popular and is still available.[2] NASA Mission Control consoles had lots of them.
They are guarded, the guard just comes with the button assembly. There is no reason to have the sides raised like that except to guard against accidental presses of adjacent buttons.
> The STOP and RESET buttons are from a Documation card reader.[1] They're not guarded.
They're recessed. Buttons come with recessed or raised actuators depending on the application. Recessed buttons prevent something bumping into the control panel from pressing the button. If you ever look at a properly designed industrial control panel, start buttons are flush or recessed and stop buttons raised.
Emergency stop buttons (E-Stop) are not only raised but feature a large "mushroom head" design to ensure they are visible and easy to press. They may have a recessed guard around them to prevent accidental actuation.
Side note: I grew up in a machine shop and the Comet VMC-1000 Mills we had featured a lot of the square/rectangular buttons[1]. The cycle start button has a Molly guard but is almost always missing as it's quite fragile and easily knocked off (ours were missing too.) I like the aesthetics so when I went to Japan and explored Akihibara Electric City, I found an industrial electronics vendor[2] just outside of the Akihibara Station who had a nice selection of them from Fuji Electric. I bought a bunch with 24V lamps for a PLC test stand. Another vendor is eao.
Yeah, it’s funny how IBM managed to be both absolutely undeniably corporate and somehow still incredibly beautiful. I think it’s just a testament to the visual pleasure created by knowing someone really truly cared about what they were doing.
My HP Probook with power button of same shape -and next to- my delete button needs a molly guard (right now I just have it disabled, which you can argue is a molly guard).
I fully expected the origin of "Molly Guard" to be apocryphal, akin to something your boomer uncle sends you in 2008, that's been forwarded 1000 times and you can see all the fwd: address lists in the message ("Hey Susan, thought you might find this funny... -Bill"). I was not expecting to see the actual Molly in an archived newspaper article. Pretty cool.
Just to nitpick, in the section after "On the other side, these following guards are more of a “you really shouldn’t do this” variety – much closer to a disabled state in graphical user interfaces:"
The second and third examples are safety lockouts [0] working as intended: Some system is locked in the off state to ensure safe access for technicians.
Especially the padlock lockout is simple and effective: As long as you have the key in your pocket, you can be sure than no one is going to turn on the meat grinder you are cleaning.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout%E2%80%93tagout
Isn't the third one just a sticker?
> This IBM electronic typewriter had a gorgeous perspex molly guard around the power button
Creators of some keyboards placing a sleep button right above arrow keys didn't bother doing this.
the modern version is "ctrl-q to quit, ctrl-w to close the current tab"
Very interesting timing: a few days ago I created one in OpenSCAD for myself and my... daughter (not named "Molly" though) would accidentally hit my PC's power button all too often while plugging in a USB device.
For the power button is located next to two USB ports I use and, for whatever reason and although it's a very good PC tower, the button is ultra sensitive.
So I created a "not-molly guard" that "plugs" into the two audio jacks (which I never use and which are, also, next to the power button) and that only leaves a narrow hole and a guardrail of a few millimeters.
Printing it in black, matching the tower's lip where the power button is, and life is good. Already hit that Molly guard several times by mistake so I figured out I already saved more time than it took to design it.
As it's a small piece, it printed in a few minutes on the 3D printer.
P.S: AFAICT there's no software setting (?) to prevent the power button from doing what it does!? But who cares, I've got the Molly guard now.
You can generally configure the power button to require a 5s press or to suspend the computer in the motherboard's firmware UI (UEFI/BIOS).
The hover images were delightful thank you for that little bit of whimsy. Also the iTunes Burn CD one was my favorite! I totally forgot about that and its so fun compared to flat design.
The STOP and RESET buttons are from a Documation card reader.[1] They're not guarded. They just come from a standard kit of buttons and lamps where you could assemble the components and dividers into a control panel. That style of illuminated push button was once popular and is still available.[2] NASA Mission Control consoles had lots of them.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0F1bLfFKY
[2] https://cpc.farnell.com/rjs-electronics/rjs-k16-391-ge-65j/i...
They are guarded, the guard just comes with the button assembly. There is no reason to have the sides raised like that except to guard against accidental presses of adjacent buttons.
> The STOP and RESET buttons are from a Documation card reader.[1] They're not guarded.
They're recessed. Buttons come with recessed or raised actuators depending on the application. Recessed buttons prevent something bumping into the control panel from pressing the button. If you ever look at a properly designed industrial control panel, start buttons are flush or recessed and stop buttons raised.
Emergency stop buttons (E-Stop) are not only raised but feature a large "mushroom head" design to ensure they are visible and easy to press. They may have a recessed guard around them to prevent accidental actuation.
> [2] https://cpc.farnell.com/rjs-electronics/rjs-k16-391-ge-65j/i...
Side note: I grew up in a machine shop and the Comet VMC-1000 Mills we had featured a lot of the square/rectangular buttons[1]. The cycle start button has a Molly guard but is almost always missing as it's quite fragile and easily knocked off (ours were missing too.) I like the aesthetics so when I went to Japan and explored Akihibara Electric City, I found an industrial electronics vendor[2] just outside of the Akihibara Station who had a nice selection of them from Fuji Electric. I bought a bunch with 24V lamps for a PLC test stand. Another vendor is eao.
1. https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/auctions-2023/bsctho10...
2. https://www.tanakamusen.com/
The IBM electronic typewriter with the perspex guard is absolutely beautiful.
Yeah, it’s funny how IBM managed to be both absolutely undeniably corporate and somehow still incredibly beautiful. I think it’s just a testament to the visual pleasure created by knowing someone really truly cared about what they were doing.
Severance really captured that vibe.
My HP Probook with power button of same shape -and next to- my delete button needs a molly guard (right now I just have it disabled, which you can argue is a molly guard).
It was amazing to read the original account in the alumni newsletter, and it was great to see the photo. The legend is real! Heh heh.
I fully expected the origin of "Molly Guard" to be apocryphal, akin to something your boomer uncle sends you in 2008, that's been forwarded 1000 times and you can see all the fwd: address lists in the message ("Hey Susan, thought you might find this funny... -Bill"). I was not expecting to see the actual Molly in an archived newspaper article. Pretty cool.
I would really like to know which museum in Germany this is from.
On the author's Flickr, the first image is in the "DASA Working World Exhibition" album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/55316837619/in/album-...
It's in Dortmund: https://www.dasa-dortmund.de/en/
The author also has a list of his favorite tech museums: https://aresluna.org/fav-tech-museums/
I had a cat named Molly who would flip switches.
I would go to this museum.
Awesome article! Love the way you went from physically to digital.
But molly dies