CAIB Vol. 2 question (1)

Part 02, page 36, under the NOTE, it references 'talkbacks' and says 'go
gray'. What's a talkback, and where is the indicator, and what does it
show? (Colors, barber pole, something else?)

-Dan

Dan Foster wrote in
:

Part 02, page 36, under the NOTE, it references 'talkbacks' and says 'go
gray'. What's a talkback, and where is the indicator, and what does it
show? (Colors, barber pole, something else?)

A talkback is a small window (about 1 cm square) in a control panel, with a
rotating indicator behind it. Think slot machine. Talkbacks have different
indications according to their functions. For a two-way indicator, gray
means "OK" or "on" or "open", while barberpole (alternating black and white
diagonal stripes) means "not OK" or "off" or "closed". As another example,
the star tracker doors on the shuttle have three-way talkbacks that
indicate "OP" for "open", barberpole for "door in transit", and "CL" for
"closed".

--
JRF

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"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in
:

Dan Foster wrote in
:

Part 02, page 36, under the NOTE, it references 'talkbacks' and says
'go gray'. What's a talkback, and where is the indicator, and what
does it show? (Colors, barber pole, something else?)

A talkback is a small window (about 1 cm square) in a control panel,
with a rotating indicator behind it. Think slot machine. Talkbacks
have different indications according to their functions. For a two-way
indicator, gray means "OK" or "on" or "open", while barberpole
(alternating black and white diagonal stripes) means "not OK" or "off"
or "closed". As another example, the star tracker doors on the shuttle
have three-way talkbacks that indicate "OP" for "open", barberpole for
"door in transit", and "CL" for "closed".

Just had a chance to finally read the procedure you're referring to (107
P/L operations checklist). The note you're referring to was right below a
line that read:

LPT PWR ENA 1 - ON (tb - bp)
2 - ON (tb - bp)

These indicate switch throws by the crew. Normally the control panel is
called out in the far left column, but if a bunch of switches are on the
same panel, the procedure will just call it out once. So looking back on
the previous page, the last panel called out was L12U. So the way the crew
would read this is, "go to panel L12U (left side of the flight deck, near
the aft end, upper part of the panel), flip the LPT PWR ENA 1 switch to ON,
wait for the talkback to go barberpole, then do the same with the LPT PWR
ENA 2 switch." So in this case, the talkback indicators were directly
associated with particular switches. That is often the case, but not
always.

The NOTE is simply informing the crew that after they turn on the LPTs, the
Payload Operations Control Center (POCC) will send commands 10-20 minutes
later that will cause the talkbacks to indicate gray.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
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In article , Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Dan Foster wrote in
:

Part 02, page 36, under the NOTE, it references 'talkbacks' and says 'go
gray'. What's a talkback, and where is the indicator, and what does it
show? (Colors, barber pole, something else?)

A talkback is a small window (about 1 cm square) in a control panel, with a
rotating indicator behind it. Think slot machine. Talkbacks have different
indications according to their functions. For a two-way indicator, gray
means "OK" or "on" or "open", while barberpole (alternating black and white
diagonal stripes) means "not OK" or "off" or "closed". As another example,
the star tracker doors on the shuttle have three-way talkbacks that
indicate "OP" for "open", barberpole for "door in transit", and "CL" for
"closed".

Ah! That's interesting, and makes sense. I've certainly seen that kind of
design used to good human user interface effect elsewhere... such as with
the 747-400's Flight Management Computer's UI design... it's got a three
way indicator for the 'gear down' information.

I don't recall the exact indicators offhand but it has a barber pole
display for while the gear is in transit, then a box with green borders and
'DN' when all wheels fully down and locked, and a different color and 'UP'
if the wheels are still in up, along with a flag (error symbol) if it's not
completely in one of these three states -- helps the flight crew know if
they need to expect a potentially gear-up landing or a gear collapse upon
touchdown kind of landing.

-Dan

Dan Foster wrote in
:

In article , Jorge R. Frank
wrote:
Dan Foster wrote in
:

Part 02, page 36, under the NOTE, it references 'talkbacks' and says
'go gray'. What's a talkback, and where is the indicator, and what
does it show? (Colors, barber pole, something else?)

A talkback is a small window (about 1 cm square) in a control panel,
with a rotating indicator behind it. Think slot machine. Talkbacks
have different indications according to their functions. For a
two-way indicator, gray means "OK" or "on" or "open", while
barberpole (alternating black and white diagonal stripes) means "not
OK" or "off" or "closed". As another example, the star tracker doors
on the shuttle have three-way talkbacks that indicate "OP" for
"open", barberpole for "door in transit", and "CL" for "closed".

Ah! That's interesting, and makes sense. I've certainly seen that kind
of design used to good human user interface effect elsewhere... such
as with the 747-400's Flight Management Computer's UI design... it's
got a three way indicator for the 'gear down' information.

I don't recall the exact indicators offhand but it has a barber pole
display for while the gear is in transit, then a box with green
borders and 'DN' when all wheels fully down and locked, and a
different color and 'UP' if the wheels are still in up, along with a
flag (error symbol) if it's not completely in one of these three
states -- helps the flight crew know if they need to expect a
potentially gear-up landing or a gear collapse upon touchdown kind of
landing.

The shuttle's landing gear talkbacks work similarly, though not in color.
:-) The only colors used in shuttle talkbacks are black, white, and gray.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

The only colors used in shuttle talkbacks are black, white, and gray.

Talking to a physicist and calling black, grey or white "colours" will
lead to unpredicatable reactions, from chuckling to outbreaks of violence 8-).

Jan

Jan C. Vorbrüggen wrote in
:

The only colors used in shuttle talkbacks are black, white, and gray.

Talking to a physicist and calling black, grey or white "colours" will
lead to unpredicatable reactions, from chuckling to outbreaks of
violence 8-).

When doing human-factors design of a control panel, it is not the
physicists' concept of color that matters; it is the graphic artists'.

Most physicists I've met are smart enough to understand that.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Dan Foster wrote:

Ah! That's interesting, and makes sense. I've certainly seen that kind of
design used to good human user interface effect elsewhere... such as with
the 747-400's Flight Management Computer's UI design... it's got a three
way indicator for the 'gear down' information.

We used an interesting one on the FCS console... Essentially it was a
mini slide projector with 20 lamps and 20 messages. (IIRC 20) Plugged
into a fixed base it served as just an indicator, plugged into a
different base, it became a pushbutton (actuator/indicator), as well
as being an indicator. This made sparing and maintenance easy. Lamps
could be replaced individually, the 'slide films' could be swapped
between indicator bodies, and the bodies and or bases swapped out
individually.

I don't recall the exact indicators offhand but it has a barber pole
display for while the gear is in transit, then a box with green borders and
'DN' when all wheels fully down and locked, and a different color and 'UP'
if the wheels are still in up, along with a flag (error symbol) if it's not
completely in one of these three states -- helps the flight crew know if
they need to expect a potentially gear-up landing or a gear collapse upon
touchdown kind of landing.

Each of our indicators or actuator/indicators had it's own message
film, plus a standard color code.

Dark (off) = function not available or alert/alarm not active.
White (white text on a black background) = function available.
Yellow (black text on a yellow background) = operator alert or
operation in progress.
Green (black text on a green background) = function normal or
operation complete.
Red (black text on a red background) = operator alarm.

Pretty simple overall, but it took a bit to learn to 'read' the
console. The display was arranged so that left and or up on the
console were the more important indicators. (For example all of the
power indicators were in the upper left corner.) One couldn't simply
jump on an out of family indication, but had to check the other
indicators (above and to the left) as well as the system printer.

D.
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The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

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