79 lines
7.3 KiB
HTML
79 lines
7.3 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>blinkenlights</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../B.html" title="B"/><link rel="previous" href="bletcherous.html" title="bletcherous"/><link rel="next" href="blit.html" title="blit"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">blinkenlights</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="bletcherous.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">B</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="blit.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="blinkenlights"/><dt xmlns="" id="blinkenlights"><b>blinkenlights</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/blink'@n·li:tz/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [common] Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, esp. a
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<a href="../D/dinosaur.html"><i class="glossterm">dinosaur</i></a>. Now that dinosaurs are rare, this term
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usually refers to status lights on a modem, network hub, or the
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like.</p></dd><dd><p>This term derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic
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sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer
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rooms in the English-speaking world. One version ran in its entirety as
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follows:</p><div class="literallayout"><p><span class="fraktur"><br/>
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ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!<br/>
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<br/>
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Alles touristen und non-technischen looken peepers!<br/>
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Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.<br/>
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Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken<br/>
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mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.<br/>
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Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das<br/>
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pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.<br/>
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</span></p></div><p>This silliness dates back at least as far as 1955 at IBM
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and had already gone international by the early 1960s, when it
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was reported at London University's ATLAS computing site. There are
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several variants of it in circulation, some of which actually do end with
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the word ‘blinkenlights’.</p><p>In an amusing example of turnabout-is-fair-play, German hackers have
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developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in fractured
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English, one of which is reproduced here:</p><div class="literallayout"><p><span class="fraktur"><br/>
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ATTENTION<br/>
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<br/>
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This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.<br/>
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Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is<br/>
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allowed for die experts only! So all the “<span class="quote">lefthanders</span>” stay away<br/>
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and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working<br/>
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intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked<br/>
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anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished<br/>
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the blinkenlights.<br/>
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</span></p></div><p>See also <a href="../G/geef.html"><i class="glossterm">geef</i></a>.</p><p>Old-time hackers sometimes get nostalgic for blinkenlights because
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they were so much more fun to look at than a blank panel. Sadly, very few
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computers still have them (the three LEDs on a PC keyboard certainly don't
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count). The obvious reasons (cost of wiring, cost of front-panel cutouts,
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almost nobody needs or wants to interpret machine-register states on the
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fly anymore) are only part of the story. Another part of it is that
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radio-frequency leakage from the lamp wiring was beginning to be a problem
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as far back as transistor machines. But the most fundamental fact is that
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there are very few signals slow enough to blink an LED these days! With
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slow CPUs, you could watch the bus register or instruction counter tick,
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but even at 33/66/150MHz (let alone gigahertz speeds) it's all a
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blur.</p><p>Despite this, a couple of relatively recent computer designs of note
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have featured programmable blinkenlights that were added just because they
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looked cool. The Connection Machine, a 65,536-processor parallel computer
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designed in the mid-1980s, was a black cube with one side covered with a
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grid of red blinkenlights; the sales demo had them evolving
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<a href="../L/life.html"><i class="glossterm">life</i></a> patterns. A few years later the ill-fated
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BeBox (a personal computer designed to run the BeOS operating system)
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featured twin rows of blinkenlights on the case front. When Be,
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Inc. decided to get out of the hardware business in 1996 and instead ported
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their OS to the PowerPC and later to the Intel architecture, many users
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suffered severely from the absence of their beloved blinkenlights. Before
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long an external version of the blinkenlights driven by a PC serial port
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became available; there is some sort of plot symmetry in the fact that it
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was assembled by a German.</p><p>Finally, a version updated for the Internet has been seen on
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<tt class="systemitem">news.admin.net-abuse.email</tt>:</p><div class="literallayout"><p><span class="fraktur"><br/>
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ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!<br/>
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<br/>
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Das Internet is nicht fuer gefingerclicken und giffengrabben. Ist easy<br/>
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droppenpacket der routers und overloaden der backbone mit der spammen<br/>
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und der me-tooen. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das<br/>
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mausklicken sichtseeren keepen das bandwit-spewin hans in das pockets<br/>
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muss; relaxen und watchen das cursorblinken.<br/>
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</span></p></div><p>This newest version partly reflects reports that the word
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‘blinkenlights’ is (in 1999) undergoing something of a revival
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in usage, but applied to networking equipment. The transmit and receive
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lights on routers, activity lights on switches and hubs, and other network
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equipment often blink in visually pleasing and seemingly coordinated
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ways. Although this is different in some ways from register readings, a
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tall stack of Cisco equipment or a 19-inch rack of ISDN terminals can
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provoke a similar feeling of hypnotic awe, especially in a darkened network
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operations center or server room.</p><p>The ancestor of the original blinkenlights posters of the 1950s was
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probably this:</p><div class="mediaobject"><a id="gefingerpoken"/><img src="../graphics/gefingerpoken.jpg"/><div class="caption"><p>WWII-era machine-shop poster</p></div></div><p>We are informed that cod-German parodies of this kind were very
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common in Allied machine shops during and following WWII. Germans,
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then as now, had a reputation for being both good with precision
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machinery and prone to officious notices.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="bletcherous.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../B.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="blit.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">bletcherous </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> blit</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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