Does anybody at all know what more than 2 buttons do on their microwave? I thought they were mostly there for decoration

The real problem is there is no ISO Standard for the appliance interfaces. Do you press power level first? Or time first. Is it Forth like, numbers then operation or Haskell like, Function then number. My refrigerator has illuminated bars indicating how cold it is set for. Even after downloading a pdf of the user guide I can't figure out if I'm setting it correctly. Placing a thermometer inside and using trial and error solved the problem (after a few frozen bags of spinach).

My microwave has two knobs. One for power, one for time. It turns on automatically when you turn the timer and turns off automatically (sounding a mechanical bell) when the timer hits zero.

I believe the timer is clockwork.

I used one of those microwaves once. Best interface ever, and so much simpler than the high-tech beepy button matrix! Do microwave manufacturers just not realize that they're making their products worse by complicating them? I don't get it.

Knobs are more expensive than buttons?

Actually, yes. Anything with a moving part is painfully expensive, which is why cheap monitors try to reduce the number of buttons or use capacitative touch-sensitive controls.

Touch-sensitive membrane buttons like the ones the use on the front of microwaves are much cheaper than mechanical timers.

I have one like these, and it's amazing. They should have stopped designing new shit after these. :)

My family had a microwave like that for ages, and I loved it. I think it was over 20 years old by the time they got a new one, because it was so rugged and easy to use.

And if you want something fancier, add just one more knob for grill-power.

Personally I think problems people have with appliances like microwave ovens are a combination of fear and intellectual laziness (aka. not expecting to have to figure out anything for themselves anymore). Probably the same thing as with computers in general[0].

Most of appliances provide functions expected from devices of their class and follow obvious patterns that you quickly internalize. I have a running bet with my friends that I can operate any electronic appliance without a manual. The hardest case I've ever had so far was setting the clock on a microwave that provided alternative functionality under "START" button when the oven doors were open. It took me a few minutes to crack that one.

[0] - https://xkcd.com/627/

And why does every single key press have to beep??

So that you know it worked. Even without looking at the small display that also usually changes in response.

This is what I miss about older technology - especially dumbphones. The input always worked, and always worked with the same timing. I could operate my Sony Ericsson K800i without looking at the screen because my brain memorized the sequences of buttons and timings of common operations. Joystick press, up, up, press, down, press, wait about a second, press, done. Compare with Android phones which routinely ignore or misinterpret input ("that was a swipe, not a press!"), and hang at unpredictable moments for unpredictable amount of time (usually also ignoring input while hung).

Input lag is the mortal sin of UI design, and it's ignored everywhere except on dedicated appliances (touch phone, microwave, fridge). Instant response is not a given. I wish OS designers treated the user as a real-time system with hard deadlines.

But I can't microwave something late at night without waking the whole house up!

Your keys are actually louder than the microwave itself? :o.

(At least every microwave I ever operated was pretty loud when cooking.)

The magnetron fan is white noise, but the beeps are shrill and piercing.

One benefit, though not necessarily intended by the manufacturers, is that blind users get some kind of feedback for each keypress, since there's usually no tactile feedback on a microwave.

I once spent half an hour reading the microwave manual (in Japanese) looking for some hidden way to disable the beeps. If you hold down one of the keys for over 5 seconds it puts you in silent mode, also disabling the annoying melody when heating is finished.

True! And what about office printers? =) The 2 machine types I dislike interacting with the most.

Yeah.. kids are tougher than we tend to give them credit for. I got an Amiga 500 when I was 10 years old, try playing Carrier Command, Elite or something like that without a manual and no clue what any of the words mean :) We sometimes didn't get very far, or missed out on many aspects, but there was still so much we did get out of it, so we kept hanging on, and with everything we understood, other things became easier to understand. I basically learned English that way, once I got a dictionary, since the coolest and best games and applications generally were in English. I didn't even notice I was learning you might say, I was too busy stacking boxes to get the banana :D

Ah, Carrier Command... I'm going to have to play that again. Powered on my Amiga 500 on my desk yesterday after almost two years, and to my amazement the battery kept the correct time.

$c00000 - FAKE FAST LOCATED

My A4000T is also still working fine (last time I checked), but of course the HD died. One of these days I will get a CF or even SSD in there, maybe get a nice mouse and indulge myself to bits. http://aminet.net/ is still here and nice things still get made, after all :)

What miss most is using tools like ExoticRipper to grab music modules from memory after reset, to then play them at leisure and examine/change them with a tracker. Or playing around with the "Action Replay" modules I-III, that blew my mind too. Making a pause toggle by connect the mass of the case to a specific pin of the extension slot, haha, I was so scared doing it and so shocked it actually worked. I may not have learned so much I ended up still using (except today I prefer Renoise to all other DAW), but I sure learned a lot about learning, that is, wildly poking around to figure things out.