When I climbed into the old tower at ATL, I never saw so much equipment packed into a small space. Pretty sure it was tube technology or maybe both tube and transistor. The “planes” were little lines of paper on wooden holders on the controllers work space, stacked in a row. When the plane landed, the controller would throw away the paper and recycle the holder. (The new tower was definitely I remember visiting, but I was focused on looking out at the planes.)
No doubt the Elon could improve the system, but almost anyone could. I think Europe uses a modern system. All you need is a budget that not spent on agitating people in Peru and buying weapons for Afghani terrorists
