After trying to figure out all the buttons and knobs in the model of a modern tractor cab in the Expo Center Annex at the Porter County Fair, I'm ready to tackle something easier.

Like piloting the space shuttle.

The first time I saw the educational display, it seemed interesting because it looked like the interior of a luxury RV instead of a piece of farm machinery. A couple of days later I looked at it again, this time while sitting in the driver's seat. As my eyes, befogged from an Italian sausage overdose, focused on the controls, I was stunned.

Back when I worked on the neighbor's cowasaurus farm, I drove tractors with two pedals (the clutch and the brake), a gear shift, a steering wheel and a throttle. That was about it.

Some of the model's dials and switches were pretty obvious, like for the heating and air conditioning, the gear shift and, of course, the margarita mixer. At least, that's what I figured it had to be since it also had a couple of cup holders. The rest of them might have controlled the retro rockets and fired the ground-to-air missiles for all I knew.

Hoping for help because, you never know, I might be called on to take on a terrorist cell with only a plow and old-fashioned Yankee pluck, I convinced Gene Birky to join me in the cab to decipher all the bells and whistles on that baby. (We never did find which switches controlled either the bells or the whistles, by the way.)

Birky, 74, has farmed for 30 or 40 years, so he has handled these big rigs before, but even he was baffled by many of the controls. As he pondered, he apparently bumped a button somewhere that operated the rear window wiper. We never figured out which one it was, but it stopped on its own after a couple of swipes, so maybe it was just the washer switch.

Some of the things he explained didn't make much sense to me, like the PTO lever (for power takeoff). Birky said most of the controls probably were for the various hydraulics needed to operate, raise and lower the different farm implements. One switch downshifted the tractor two gears when slowing for a stop or upshifted when resuming speed.

He lifted the cover of what I thought was an armrest, and, instead of finding storage space for your collection of John Deere hats, it had more knobs and switches. As we climbed out of the cab, I looked up, AND THERE WERE MORE KNOBS AND CONNECTIONS NEAR THE ROOF!

"They're getting too sophisticated for farming," Birky said, looking at the radio and power connections tucked onto the upper shelf.

The display is a model of a Case International tractor that Fair Board President Dennis Steinhilber arranged to get from the Racine, Wis., company. Steinhilber farmed for about 15 years but now sells the Case International equipment for H & P Sales.

He said the model is about five years old, and a tractor equipped like the model would cost about $150,000. Of course, that would also include the wheels and an engine and the rest of the tractor stuff not shown on the model. He said it has timers for the hydraulic lifts and power connections to operate planter machines.

"It's a lot different than it used to be," Steinhilber said of the change in tractor technology. "Inside the cab it's quiet just like in a car. A lot of old farmers wish they had that to protect their hearing."

I wonder if they still have roundups for branding the cowasauruses.

The opinions are those of the writer. He can be reached at pwieland@nwitimes.com or (219) 548-4352.