Talk:Black box (transportation)

Old talk inactive, moved to archive1 Talk:Black box (transportation) archive1 Meggar 20:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Nature of the term
"Black Box" is an intentionaly vague term often found in the mass media. It is used, not because journalist are ignorant of the subject, but because they would estimate a mass readership to be uninterested in anything more taxing. Encyclopedia articles are not dumbed-down in that way, but written assuming that encyclopedia readers are willing to expand their level of knowledge beyond simple preconceived ideas. This article is here to explain the nature and use of the term and to provide access to actual technicial and regulatory information contained in articles covering the various and distinct systems. Meggar 22:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The sub-articles merged into this one all relate to devices which (a) perform much the same tasks and (b) are referred to informally as "black boxes". Such devices share a lot of characteristics in common that are best centralised in order to reduce unnecessary repetition.
 * I can see that there's a valid objection to the name, but I don't believe there's an official term which covers all these devices. As such, the Manual of Style suggests that we go by the most commonly-used one, "dumbed down" or not. So long as we don't suggest it's a formal term we're okay on this front.
 * I'm happy to have information split back out of here when size becomes an issue. I'm not happy to have several very short articles where the majority of the interesting information is duplicated. Chris Cunningham 12:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[::That is true.i am a proper gay and There isn't, and can not be, an official term covering all these devices. It is understandable that there were a lot of opinions traded here at a time before there were sufficient references in the articles.


 * Installations of safety equipment in public transportation systems are legal requirements. Necessarily the statutes stating those requirements clearly lay out the identity and characteristics of the equipment, and each such statue refers to standards detailing technical specifications. For each transportation system there is a different responsible agency, and each promulgates requirements and specifications independently;  allowing each to be responsive to the myriad technical details and changes affecting their services.  The present arrangement of six separate Wikipedia articles is parallel to the defining documents. These documents are written as clearly as possible and are available to the public. There should be no further need for opinions as to what is sort of like something else; what they are is exactly what the laws say they are. None of them of course are “black boxes”. With the names of articles established in conformance to references we might now concentrate on developing those articles rather than haggling about what we would personally prefer to call them. Meggar 19:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The term 'Black Box' arose because to the WW II RAF service personel who were installing and operating the devices the inner workings were required to remain secret, and so any new piece of equipment, e.g., H2S radar, or Gee, would be referred-to to outsiders as a 'black box'. Most of these new 'black boxes' were the work of the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) and the equipment cases were invariably painted black, in line with other RAF electronic cockpit equipment. As the new devices were unusual, other sevice personel not being allowed to know what they were for, the term 'black box' soon became widespread for any unusual piece of electronic equipment installed in an aircraft. So when the first FDR and CVRs were introduced, UK aviation personel thought of them 'as just another black box', however this term 'black box' was picked up by the media and applied soley to the FDR and CVR. If you look at any reputable aviation magazine of the 1940s-1960s period, such as Flight International, you will see that the term originally applied to any 'electronic box-of-tricks' carried by an aircraft.


 * BTW, the 'boxes' were painted 'black' because the majority of them were intended for RAF Bomber Command's night bomber force - black didn't reflect stray light inside the cockpit (e.g., from searchlights) and distract the operator's eye from what he was doing - often peering at a PPI or other CRT - a bit like watching TV in the dark with the lights off, it's easier to concentrate on what you're watching. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.68.219 (talk) 11:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * A 1946 use of the term 'black boxes' in an issue of Flight here (at end of article):  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 17:38, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Event Data Recorder
All the other types of "Black Boxes" mentioned on this page also have pages of their own - but the Event Data Recorder (version used in automobiles) link just redirects back to this page. If the EDR doesn't have a page of its own yet, the "link" for it should at least be the 'red' version for a page that doesn't yet exist. I'd modify if myself but I don't know how. 66.68.6.110 00:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, turns out there is an Event data recorder page, it was just some redirects at fault, I belive I have it fixed, but once again I'm new to anything more than simple grammatical fixes, so if anyone wants to check it ... 66.68.6.110 00:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)