Back when I was a young guy, one of the things which defined a computer was that it had LOTS of blinking lights on something called the control panel. Most of the lights displayed the current value of bits in various important registers. I knew experienced programmers and operators who could tell what the machine was doing, or if it had gone into a loop by seeing patterns in the lights. An IBM 360 typically had a control panel with dimensions measured in feet, and two dimensional arrays of lights. Minicomputers (like Novas, PDP-5/8s and pre-VAX PDP-11s had control panels measured in inches, usually with only a row or two of lights). Early micro-computers like the Altair were similar in this respect to minicomputers, but then the personal computer came along and the lights tended to go away.
On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 09:04:32 -0400, Aaron S. Joyner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dave Sorenson wrote: > > >Most non-geeks don't care about blinkin lights (except at Christmas). They > >want an appliance they can plug in and forget about without having to worry > >about configuring, checking, testing, experimenting with etc.. Why do you > >think there are so many open WAP's in neighborhoods. It's not because it's > >hard to set up security, it's because people are too lazy to RTFM. I for one > >want all the blinky bling bling I can get! ;) > > > >Dave S. > > > > > Yeah, true computer geeks and LEDs have a strangely symbiotic > relationship, as exhibited here: > > http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20040904 > > Aaron S. Joyner > > > -- > TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug > TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ > TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ > TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc > -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
