Take a photo of them. Then zoom in. If that doesn’t blow their minds, take a video of them and play it back.

Digital cameras have been commercially available as early as the late 80s, but were of course super low res and with terrible image quality even accounting for that compared to what I just carry in my pocket now.

I would agree with you, but I still want to own a microwave. There are none with reasonable UI behavior as far as I can tell.

(Edit) For example: Opening the door a few seconds early always leaves time on the display which should just automatically clear after a minute or two. Obviously if the user doesn’t use that leftover time immediately then they aren’t going to.

It can be used in moderation. Obviously when talking back and forth with an actual cat is one example.

Another is from the days before cell phones. If my parents got separated from each other when shopping, my dad would start to meow very loudly and mom would run over as quick as she could, to shut him up and stop embarrassing us.