Review of the Buick Riviera’s ‘touchscreen’ from 1986 [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEzEbS4uvuo

107 74 5 years ago

varelse• 5 years ago

I drove a 1997 Riviera for about a decade (I know I know down vote me because it wasn't a 1986 Riviera). But it had some very interesting interface elements for the time that were less advanced than this but also ahead of the 1999 Camaro I had driven previously. I would have kept that car, it only had about 100,000 miles on it, but one of the neighborhood CHUDs rammed it and no one wanted to repair the door that was destroyed by the ramming because no one knew where to find parts for it. Bay area by the way and it's a real shame because I really loved the car in all its gas guzzling glory.

tpmx• 5 years ago

That chime sound at https://youtu.be/mEzEbS4uvuo?t=207 - it seems very familiar in auto contexts. Is this where it originated?

tyingq3• 5 years ago

The note/tone sounds similar to the "ding" sound on a passenger aircraft...just repeated quickly.

p1mrx5• 5 years ago

The aircraft chime reminds me of the Home Alone theme, but I guess they're not in quite the same key: https://youtu.be/g3H9cnQDdvM vs https://youtu.be/nPNNFa3jF3g?t=26

evilbob933• 5 years ago

As I heard that, I had a flashback to the first moments in many rental cars in my life.

userbinator• 5 years ago

The seatbelt warning chime has been there since the early 70s, I believe.

Der_Einzige• 5 years ago

I love this sort of aesthetic so much, and wish that the car around it was better (e.g. RWD) such that it would be worth buying and fixing up.

tyingq3• 5 years ago

It was a terrible quality car, but the 86 model was front wheel drive, not RWD. They were FWD from 1979 until the end.

frosted-flakes• 5 years ago

I think that's what GP meant; they wish it was RWD.

evilbob933• 5 years ago

When I worked in the auto industry at Buick/Oldsmobile/Cadillac Engineering , I got to see one of these while it was in prototype stage.

One reason this didn't take hold is that they found that this interface forced a driver to take their eyes off the road to do basic functions like changing the climate settings.

When I got to ride in this, there was a maintenance screen you could pull up by pressing three of the buttons. This screen had functions like displaying and modifying the throttle angle, fuel-air mixture, etc. While driving around, we were able to change the fuel air mixture such that the car started running badly and we could smell gas.

romwell• 5 years ago

One reason this didn't take hold is that they found that this interface forced a driver to take their eyes off the road to do basic functions like changing the climate settings.

...which still applies today just as well as it did back then.

Arrath3• 5 years ago

Yet now the common sense reasoning is ignored.

evilbob933• 5 years ago

I would say that we have learned, collectively, some strategies that work, for various definitions of "work".

theodric2• 5 years ago

FFWD to 20xx and we've learned nothing, cf. Tesla, et al.

ddingus9• 5 years ago

Oh, we learned it.

That's not really the discussion, in my view. It's all about revenue and marketing.

The perceived value of those exceeds potential costs and liabilities.

riffic• 5 years ago

There's nothing like good physical controls. I believe designers call these "affordances", don't they?

cf100clunk3• 5 years ago

I have a shopping list of wishes for new cars: physical controls that are shaped/textured/otherwise laid out in ways that make them recognizable by feel or distance from the steering wheel. Don't make me have to try to figure out which rocker switch in an identical row of them performs the task I desire. Likewise, a set of steering wheel mini-paddles similar to those on new Subarus would be appreciated, but especially if they are reassignable by the driver. As for radios, go back to the old paradigm of a left volume knob and a right tuning knob, with concentric controls for reassignable features like balance, fade, bass, treble, etc. that can be easily achieved without scrolling through all of them first.

cure• 5 years ago

The subject is misleading; the touchscreen is shown in a Buick Reatta.

p1mrx5• 5 years ago

It looks like the Reatta was basically a smaller version of the Riviera, with the same control system available.

anonymousisme• 5 years ago

The Reatta was a two-seater, while the Riviera was a four-seater.

marcodiego• 5 years ago

Is it better than most modern dashboard computers?

anonymousiam• 5 years ago

The Reatta control system was one of the outcomes of GM's purchase of Hughes Aircraft. (Another was increased plant automation.)

ddingus9• 5 years ago

Vacuum Phosphor Display!

Oooohhh. That's just nice, and that is all. I love those displays.

p1mrx5• 5 years ago

I think it's just a green/monochrome CRT.

throwanem2• 5 years ago

"Vacuum phosphor display" is an accurate, if unusual, description of a CRT.

There was a trend in the 80s, tailing off in the early 90s, of using accurate but unusual descriptions like this to suggest that fairly mundane technology was in fact exotic and special. You saw it a lot on stereo equipment in particular, but American carmakers weren't shy in participating. If I had to guess at an origin, I'd say it probably had something to do with the "Japanese economic miracle" that was much in the zeitgeist then, and maybe not nothing with the fear of obsolescence and inability to compete that beset much of the US technology and industrial sector (excluding software, but not electronics) at the time.

easytiger2• 5 years ago

I recall an Amstrad with this kind of display

ddingus9• 5 years ago

Maybe. Could be a phosphor panel too.

FearlessNebula• 5 years ago

I feel like Doug would love to check that out

neogodless• 5 years ago

For those not "in the know", the parent comment is likely referring to Doug Demuro, known for ranting and raving about the buttons and surfaces inside cars, or in his words, "quirks and features."

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqjHFMB_JYTaEnf_vmTNqg

postingawayonhn• 5 years ago

Ask and you shall receive: https://youtu.be/pq2PSLdc8rA?t=188

baybal2• 5 years ago

I've seen a 1990 Japanese car with GPS, and a graphical interactive map.

It also... spoke to you, in a very creepy high school girl voice.

ladon86• 5 years ago

What was the touch technology used in those days? Is it capacitive, or something else? Is there a film over the glass screen?

Tempest1981• 5 years ago

"Mylar capacitive touch surface" he says at 2.3 minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEzEbS4uvuo&t=137

On a spacious 4" x 3" screen.

ghostly_s2• 5 years ago

I don't get why the air-quotes were added to the title here.

FredPret• 5 years ago

It’s like a Pip-boy for a car!

indymike• 5 years ago

I had an 86 Riv in the early 90s while at college. It was an old person's luxury coupe and rode like a boat with big, fluffy velour couches for seats. The touch screen was actually very good. Climate control (with two zones), music (including a 6 disc changer in the trunk) and some pretty geeky charts about engine performance. The touchscreen was a good 25 years ahead of its time.

flomo• 5 years ago

When I was a teenager, they had a '86 Rivera parked right in the middle of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. So I was able to climb in and play with the touchscreen, and it was one of those "the future is here" moments. I would ideate whether it would be possible to hack something like this with an Apple IIc or something.

The car itself was not sexy at all, and was later named as the first of all the GM Deadly Sins.[0] The Reatta was only slightly better.

[0] https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/c...

sabujp• 5 years ago

demuro has a much better review of all the quirks and features of the touchscreen plus how it interacts with the main gauge cluster and how it can even be used to eject the tape deck! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq2PSLdc8rA

Review of the Buick Riviera’s ‘touchscreen’ from 1986 [video]

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