🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <?F?K#-@rpi.edu> ent...@pawl.rpi.edu (Just Another Upright Monkey) writes:
>
>I heard a story that when Hillis and Minsky finished
>building the first Connection Machine, they stepped back and
>looked at it, and saw that it was kind of dull looking:  it
>was a uniform, featureless black cube.
>
>Since they had already spent so many millions of dollars on
>it, they decided that, being a breakthrough and a
>revolutionary piece of hardware, it ought to look like one,
>and invested another couple of thousand dollars in nifty
>blinking lights.
>
>Can anyone substantiate this?

Nope.  LEDs have always been a part of the CM design, simply because we all
liked computers with blinking lights.  I would much rather look at an old
'10 than a VAX.  Besides, we were building a machine with tens of thousands
of processors; we wanted to be able to see how computations were using the
PEs.  Also, many people assume the lights were a marketing ploy.  Marketing
had nothing to do with it.  We knew we were having lights before there was
a single marketing person in the company; in fact, much of the packaging
design was done while we had few or no marketing people.

This is kind of weird: I guess I still think I work for this startup
company, and here I am talking about its folklore.  I feel old.

--Bruce Walker (Nemnich)
  Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA
  br...@think.com; +1 617 876 1111

--
--Bruce Walker (Nemnich)
  Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA
  br...@think.com; +1 617 876 1111

ent...@pawl.rpi.edu (Just Another Upright Monkey) writes:
>I heard a story that when Hillis and Minsky finished
>building the first Connection Machine, they stepped back and
>looked at it, and saw that it was kind of dull looking:  it
>was a uniform, featureless black cube.
>
>Since they had already spent so many millions of dollars on
>it, they decided that, being a breakthrough and a
>revolutionary piece of hardware, it ought to look like one,
>and invested another couple of thousand dollars in nifty
>blinking lights.
>
>Can anyone substantiate this?

	The way I heard it was that it was on public display from
	the front reception area by way of a huge window.  Upper
	management didn't think it looked high tech enough, so
	they said to make some more blinking lights.

    aBp.
-- 
Andy Pippin  -*-  api...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU  -*-  Conserve water, drink beir.

In <1989Dec28.0...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> api...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU
(Pin...@Spikes.slo.ca.EDU) writes:
> The way I heard it was that it was on public display from the front
> reception area by way of a huge window.  Upper management didn't
> think it looked high tech enough, so they said to make some more
> blinking lights.

This story, true or not, is about an IBM 3090 not a Connection
Machine.  I am very much reminding myself of that game "Telephone"
now, but I believe I first saw the story reported as a true one in
rec.humor.funny (someone could check Brad's anthology and find out
...) and that there were in fact 6 3090s involved at a mega-travel
agency in Flordia.  [ Pah!  RPI gets _one_.  They took six. ]  Seems
as though the agency had set up this nifty new machine room behind
their main desk in their main lobby with a large window looking into
it.  Management expected customers to be impressed with the awesome
computers which they had purchased and were exceedingly disappointed
when they took delivery of some rather large and dull looking boxes.
Whining to IBM about this, Big Blue wired up some dummy light panels
to flash merrily for the people who would view the machines through
the window.

Then again, maybe I just dreamed this.

Dave
-- 
   (setq mail '("ta...@cs.rpi.edu" "ta...@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))

In article <2^F'...@rpi.edu> ta...@cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes:
>In <1989Dec28.0...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> api...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU
>(Pin...@Spikes.slo.ca.EDU) writes:
>> The way I heard it was that it was on public display from the front
>> reception area by way of a huge window.  Upper management didn't
>> think it looked high tech enough, so they said to make some more
>> blinking lights.
>
>This story, true or not, is about an IBM 3090 not a Connection
>Machine.  I am very much reminding myself of that game "Telephone"
>now, but I believe I first saw the story reported as a true one in
>rec.humor.funny (someone could check Brad's anthology and find out
>...) and that there were in fact 6 3090s involved at a mega-travel
>agency in Flordia.  [ Pah!  RPI gets _one_.  They took six. ]  Seems
>as though the agency had set up this nifty new machine room behind
>their main desk in their main lobby with a large window looking into
>it.  Management expected customers to be impressed with the awesome
>computers which they had purchased and were exceedingly disappointed
>when they took delivery of some rather large and dull looking boxes.
>Whining to IBM about this, Big Blue wired up some dummy light panels
>to flash merrily for the people who would view the machines through
>the window.
>
>Then again, maybe I just dreamed this.

No, you did not.  However, it was not quite like that.  IBM was involved.
They were asked to supply some computers for the set of a movie/show
(It was a movie, then it became a TV show...  $6 Milion Dollar Man...)

Anyway, the director saw the computer and asked why there were only a
few lights.  The IBM guy said that that was all they had.  The director
said that the viewers would not recognize it as a computer without
lights and said to bring it back.  The IBM person, wanting to get the
machine into the movie, had an engineer build up a pannel of lights and
a program that would flicker the lights in some way tied to the keyboard
or tape drive or something (I don't know all of the details)  They
bolted this onto the front of the cabinet and the director was happy.

Much the same was true in WarGames when the CRAY and VAX machines they took
pictures of were so "blank" they built this machine with many lights as
the machine that did all of the work.

>
>Dave
>-- 
>   (setq mail '("ta...@cs.rpi.edu" "ta...@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))

/----------------------------------------------------------------------\
|      /// Michael Sinz -- CATS/Amiga Software Engineer                |
|     ///  PHONE 215-431-9422  UUCP ( uunet | rutgers ) !cbmvax!mks    |
|    ///                                                               |
|\\\///          When people are free to do as they please,            |
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In article <91...@cbmvax.commodore.com>, m...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz - CATS) writes:

>
> IBM was involved.
> They were asked to supply some computers for the set of a movie/show
> (It was a movie, then it became a TV show...  $6 Milion Dollar Man...)
>
> Anyway, the director saw the computer and asked why there were only a
> few lights.  The IBM guy said that that was all they had.  The director
> said that the viewers would not recognize it as a computer without
> lights and said to bring it back.  The IBM person, wanting to get the

It's not just flashing lights the directors believe their
audiences want; it's the bleeps too! Whilst at NCR (UK) in the
late 70's, a team of sound engineers turned up to record
hi-tech noises for a James Bond film (no, I can't remember which one!).

They were disappointed at first, but then (this was NCR, after
all) discovered the (electronic) cash registers! These made all
sorts of interesting bleeps and clangs!

Result - a good day's work - and a happy director?

>Much the same was true in WarGames when the CRAY and VAX machines they took
>pictures of were so "blank" they built this machine with many lights as
>the machine that did all of the work.

Apparantly in  War Games  this  wasn't good  enough  ... they put   a person -
complete with clipboard - in walking around the machine taking notes. 

reb
                                r...@rtech.com reb%rt...@lll-winken.llnl.GOV
                                h:861 Washington Westwood NJ 07675 201-666-9207
I've been warped by the rain,
driven by the snow drunk and dirty don't you know and I'm still willin'...

In article <?F?K#-@rpi.edu> ent...@pawl.rpi.edu (Just Another Upright Monkey) writes:
>I heard a story that when Hillis and Minsky finished
>building the first Connection Machine, they ...

>decided that, being a breakthrough and a
>revolutionary piece of hardware, it ought to look like one,
>and invested another couple of thousand dollars in nifty
>blinking lights.
>
>Can anyone substantiate this?

Not directly, but I was told on good authority that the very first
application for the CM was a "banner"-like program to put a
message up on the lights.

	Howard A. Landman
	lan...@eng.sun.com -or- sun!landman

Yeah, and directors sometimes use standins for computer systems. When
ROBOCOP was filmed in Dallas, the scenes that were supposed to be in
the Detroit police computer center were actually shot in the captive
office lab at Bell Northern Research. Those banks of computer equipment
are really banks of digital telephone switching equipment (5 DMS-250
switches in a row). Lots of flashing lights (power/in-use indicators)
and interesting noises (phones ringing, mechanical relays, etc.). 

And I remember spending most of the night before cleaning the lab so
the film crew could even find room to set up. I was so late getting in
that I missed my chance to meet Peter Weller. But not my chance to get
flamed by all the developers wanting to know why the lab was off limits :-)

-liz

Once in while I'd get roped into giving a machine room tour to a bunch
of visiting mucky-mucks. We'd usually go thru the 3090 machine room
first because that's where the stairs came out. If the group was
particularly naive I'd usually stop in front of the big blue Liebert
A/C unit and proclaim "Here is the IBM3090, IBM's largest mainframe to
date...", it usually got wide-eyed looks.

Then when I'd show them the actual 3090 (after apologizing for my
little joke) there really wasn't as much to look at, no lights or
anything. I'd open a door and they'd see the plumbing and wouldn't
believe another word I said.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade         | b...@world.std.com
1330 Beacon St, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 | {xylogics,uunet}world!bzs

> Much the same was true in WarGames when the CRAY and VAX machines they took
> pictures of were so "blank" they built this machine with many lights as
> the machine that did all of the work.

Untrue.  The computer seen in the opening scene of War Games was the
unmodified DEC KL-10 Decsystem 10 at the Locke Computer Center (not the
Acedemic Computer Center, the one in Health Sciences) at the University of
Washington in Seattle.  I have been in the Locke center, and viewed the
KL-10, and it is covered with stupid blinky-lights, mostly having to do with
I/O processors as far as I could tell.  Now there's a computer that REALLY
LOOKS like a computer.

In article <13...@fluke.COM> ku...@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) writes:

   > Much the same was true in WarGames when the CRAY and VAX machines they took
   > pictures of were so "blank" they built this machine with many lights as
   > the machine that did all of the work.

   Untrue.  The computer seen in the opening scene of War Games was the
   unmodified DEC KL-10 Decsystem 10 at the Locke Computer Center (not the
   Acedemic Computer Center, the one in Health Sciences) at the University of
   Washington in Seattle.  I have been in the Locke center, and viewed the
   KL-10, and it is covered with stupid blinky-lights, mostly having to do with
   I/O processors as far as I could tell.  Now there's a computer that REALLY
   LOOKS like a computer.

Sorry, the KL-10 does *NOT* have lights - it has a PDP-11 which has a few
lights, but that is it. (Well, OK, a few of the power supplys have little
"breaker-tripped" lights, and it does have an "on" light, and an "off"
light - a "fault" light actually). It definitely positively is not covered
with stupid blinky-lights. It is a very dull-and-boring-looking machine.
Lots of fun to play with, but boring looking.

You must be thinking of a KI-10 (yeah, that machine looked like a computer
is supposed to look!), or possibly a KA-10.

Or possibly outboard memory boxes, or channel controllers, or the like...

					-RDH