posted
I've heard a legend that years ago, a computer company sold a mainframe to the US military. A few years later, they got a call from one of the techs manning the system that the array of flashing lights on the front of the machine had stopped working. The company responded that the lights did and meant nothing. They had attempted to sell the system without such lights originally, but the buyers thought that a computer had to have the panel of flashing lights.
Anybody else heard this legend, and is there any substance to it?
An example of these lights can be seen on the WOPR computer in the movie, War Games.
posted
I know back in the dark ages of computers (PDP-11 & such), the lights DID mean something (they were the bits of various registers. To "boot" the system, you had to enter byte by byte the boot loader on a set of switches. It was not fun.
-------------------- And now for something completely different... Posts: 4164 | From: Alabama | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know about the legend, but I have heard that cellular phones are often sold with a plastic antenae that doesn't do anything, because people won't buy them anyway.
Circling back to the OP though, I have worked with a PDP 11-34, and all kinds of different IBM systems. In every case, if their was a light, it had a meaning.
posted
My memory is getting fuzzy so I might be wrong on the details. When the IBM PC AT came out, it was considered too fast by some. Games that used to rely on the CPU clock for timing would run too fast on the computer. So, they had a "turbo" switch that allowed the user to change the CPU clock speed, and a LED display would show the speed of the clock
Eventually, the games were fixed to use a timer that didn't rely on the CPU clock for timing. So, there was no need to switch between turbo and non-turbo mode, and eventually IBM did away with that feature. However, many clones still kept the switch because people wanted to know that their computer was running in turbo mode. The switch would simply change the LED display without changing the actual clock speed.
-------------------- Nico Sasha In between my father's fields;And the citadels of the rule; Lies a no-man's land which I must cross; To find my stolen jewel. Posts: 4912 | From: VA | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mad Jay: My memory is getting fuzzy so I might be wrong on the details. When the IBM PC AT came out, it was considered too fast by some. Games that used to rely on the CPU clock for timing would run too fast on the computer. So, they had a "turbo" switch that allowed the user to change the CPU clock speed, and a LED display would show the speed of the clock
Eventually, the games were fixed to use a timer that didn't rely on the CPU clock for timing. So, there was no need to switch between turbo and non-turbo mode, and eventually IBM did away with that feature. However, many clones still kept the switch because people wanted to know that their computer was running in turbo mode. The switch would simply change the LED display without changing the actual clock speed.
That is true. The LED lights for speed on older systems were in no way tied into the processor's clock speed. You had to set which individual lights were on and off manually with a series of jumpers, with one setting for "turbo on" and one setting for "turbo off." To be cute, some people made them say "HI" or "99."
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not.
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" - The Brain Posts: 587 | From: Colorado | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I was told some twenty years ago that computers had loads of blinking LEDs that had or had not got something to do with what was happening inside. The reason for this is that the people who bought expensive mainframes were not the people that were going to work with them, but executives that had absolutely no clue about what was happening. They were, however, very impressed by the blinking lights.
For some reason this gets me thinking of Dilbert.
-------------------- Små hönor skall inte lägga stora ägg för då blir de slarviga i ändan Posts: 1334 | From: Sweden | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
For some other reason, this gets me thinking about Monthy Python's "Meaning of Life" and the birth-scene with the "machine with the 'Bing'"...
-------------------- My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling, but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. - Pooh Bear Posts: 2209 | From: Hamburg, Germany | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Don Enrico: For some other reason, this gets me thinking about Monthy Python's "Meaning of Life" and the birth-scene with the "machine with the 'Bing'"...
...but didn't that machine occasionally warble "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas?"
No, no, I'll get it:
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[fish]](graemlins/fish.gif)
