That's an IBM 5080 graphics terminal. Here's some documentation on it, with that array of dials illustrated on the cover page:
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibm5080GA2csSystemsPrinciplesofOperationMar1984_30030908/mode/2upIt was introduced in approximately 1984 if I recall correctly. I remember where I was working when I first saw it, and I only worked there from '83 to '86.
Interestingly, the 5080 was the generic name for the entire system, consisting of various parts, all with part numbers of the form 508x. IBM recycled part numbers. The display unit, consisting of the CRT screen, was given the number 5081. That is also the part number of the IBM 80 column Hollerith Punch Card, used for programming in FORTRAN and COBOL in the 1960s and '70s.
I used the 5080 system from shortly after its introduction, when I worked at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, makers of jet engines. We used it as a display unit for ANVIL-4000, an early CAD/CAM system, which we ran on an IBM 3090 mainframe under VM/CMS. The knobs were used to rotate 3-d CAD models about the X, Y, and Z axes, as well as translate along those axes, and also to zoom the display in and out. But 3 axes of rotation, plus three axes of translation, plus zoom, only accounts for the use of 7 out of those 8 knobs. I don't recall what other function might have been assigned to the last knob.
As I recall, the Evans & Sutherland Picture System 2, an early vector graphics system used for CAD/CAM, had a very similar array of knobs, and that predated the IBM 5080. But the E&S knobs, while housed in a very similar array, had more conventional cylindrical shapes, less reminiscent of a cow's udder.