What are these buttons for?

[MrSmith]

What are these buttons for?

What do they do?

Is it ever explained?

P1, P2, S1, S2 etc...

What is AIR and OIL for?

pressure?

[MrSmith]

oh and while we are at it, what about these buttons?

6RM
7DLA
PENG
8PL1

[blowersho]

I don't think those are buttons on either side of the voice box. They are supposed to be status lights for various systems like air, oil and whatever P and S stand for. As far as the strange buttons on the switch pod, I could never figure out what they were for but I think I do remember Michael pushing them once in while.

[Aragorn]

Oil could also be the oil release function.. but those are most likely status lights if you consider the way they are grouped.

P1-P4 could be similar to the D1-D4 gear sets in automatic trans vehicles

As for the function buttons:
6 rm - Recon Mode?
P eng - Pursuit Engine? I don't know, but eng screams 'engine' to me.
9 pl1 - Phone Line, Police?

[The shadowy flight]

whatever the writer wants to be…

[pdennis93]

Oil could also be the oil release function.. but those are most likely status lights if you consider the way they are grouped.

P1-P4 could be similar to the D1-D4 gear sets in automatic trans vehicles

As for the function buttons:
6 rm - Recon Mode?
P eng - Pursuit Engine? I don't know, but eng screams 'engine' to me.
9 pl1 - Phone Line, Police?

IIRC the oil slick button was down on the console. at least that's where it was when buddy pressed it in the pilot.

[AppleMacri1980]

i wish the writers could have thought of something with the buttons

[jup]

In the olden days, computers had these things called Parallel and Serial Ports. That's what I always figured the P's and S's stood for. Idiot lights that could warn if vital connections were to suddenly go dead. Which would certainly explain why there's an 'Air' and an 'Oil' light.

As for all of these randomly labeled buttons that are all over the place. I am reminded of a thing that Kitt once said in an early episode. The one where Michael is planning on going rock climbing. Kitt reminded Michael to 'program him' in case plans went wrong. I would think of these various buttons as short cut keys to entering various 'programming' into KITT's many complex systems.

Honestly, who here could ever see Michael kicking back with that gigantic book of instructions on every little detail about the Knight Two Thousand's numerous features? Even on those long drives to that case in another state, would he honestly set KITT into Auto Pilot and bust out the manual?

Alright...I'll admit he knew about the schematics on the turbines and how to read those...

[KITTfan]

Funny that there's no indicator lights which normal cars have, oil pressure, alternator, high beams, hand brake / brake fluid low level, turn signal left & right, etc

[KITTen]

Yeah, kinda makes you wonder... Besides, does Michael ever actually USE a turn signal?

[Knight Racer]

Don't think Kitt had that ability since the lever for turn signals was replaced with those button pods behind the wheel. Now that you bring up common car functions, in season 3 buy out, Kitt mentions he is air conditioned. The dash panels took up all the space so if he is I'm guessing it came from under the dash. Any thoughts on that one?

[KITTen]

Either under the dash or overhead.