Maybe it's not a joke.
Perhaps it's a serious, honest attempt to make a prediction about the future and some props were used for illustrative purposes. Just like some of Nostromo's control panels in "Aliens" were actually biomedical equipment. My guess was that it was some type of steam powerplant
control panel, just from the look of the gauges and the big manual levers, and I see I was not far off from Art's post.