alt Hacker NewsMy first guess was debouncing. They assume that the switches are worn out, deeply weathered, and cheaply made. Each press will cause the signal to oscillate and they're taking their sweet time to register it.
When the device is new this is an absurd amount of time to wait. As the device degrades over 10, 20 years, that programming will keep it working the same. Awful the entire time, yes, but the same as the day it was new.
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philipallstar • today at 12:45 PM
That's a good point. When I use them I assume they're making API calls to a central server to validate (or something) them.
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I was late for a train at my local station and the parking machine was taking ages to respond to keypresses. I could see the training pulling up to the platform and I was still stuck entering the second digit of seven. In my shameful frustration I hit the machine fairly hard. While the button presses might take a while to register, the anti-tamper alarm has really low latency and is also quite loud.