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Article #678

Re: Blinking lights ...

#678
From: br... Brian Kantor
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1990 06:04
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The nicest set of CPU lights I've seen were on the old Burroughs B6700;
there was a light for each bit in every register.  When the machine was
idle the processor lights spelled out IDLE; later they changed that to
show the big Burroughs B.  This was a 48-bit machine and we had the
dual-processor model - there were a LOT of lights on that beast.

The killer was that most of those lights were also pushbuttons and
pushing them set the bit in the associated register.  This could be
real interesting and make for bizarre system crashes, as we found out
one day whilst playing tennis in the computer room.  Seems that a flying
tennis ball has plenty enough force to activate several adjacent buttons
when it hits the processor console....

Whadday mean, HALT/LOAD for negative time of day?
	- Brian
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Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!luth!eru!bloom-beacon!snorkelwacker!apple!rutgers!ucsd!brian
From: br...@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Blinking lights ...
Message-ID: <10752@ucsd.Edu>
Date: 3 Jan 90 06:04:47 GMT
References: <9385@asylum.SF.CA.US>
Reply-To: br...@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor)
Distribution: alt
Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd.
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Posted: Wed Jan  3 07:04:47 1990
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