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

> 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.

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.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0F1bLfFKY

[2] https://cpc.farnell.com/rjs-electronics/rjs-k16-391-ge-65j/i...

The IBM electronic typewriter with the perspex guard is absolutely beautiful.

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.

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