blinkenlights

   [common]   Front-panel  diagnostic  lights  on  a  computer,  esp.  a
   {dinosaur}.  Now that dinosaurs are rare, this term usually refers to
   status lights on a modem, network hub, or the like.

   This term derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic
   sign  in  mangled  pseudo-German  that  once  graced  about  half the
   computer  rooms in the English-speaking world. One version ran in its
   entirety as follows:

                     ACHTUNG!  ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!
   Alles touristen und non-technischen looken peepers!
   Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.
   Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
   mit spitzensparken.  Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
   Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das
   pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.

   This  silliness  dates  back  at  least as far as 1955 at IBM and had
   already  gone  international by the early 1960s, when it was reported
   at  London  University's  ATLAS  computing  site.  There  are several
   variants of it in circulation, some of which actually do end with the
   word `blinkenlights'.

   In  an amusing example of turnabout-is-fair-play, German hackers have
   developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in fractured
   English, one of which is reproduced here:

                                 ATTENTION
   This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.
   Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is
   allowed for die experts only!  So all the "lefthanders" stay away
   and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working
   intelligencies.  Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked
   anderswhere!  Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished
   the blinkenlights.

   See also {geef}.

   Old-time  hackers  sometimes  get nostalgic for blinkenlights because
   they were so much more fun to look at than a blank panel. Sadly, very
   few  computers  still  have  them  (the  three  LEDs on a PC keyboard
   certainly  don't count). The obvious reasons (cost of wiring, cost of
   front-panel  cutouts,  almost  nobody  needs  or  wants  to interpret
   machine-register  states  on  the  fly  anymore) are only part of the
   story.  Another  part  of it is that radio-frequency leakage from the
   lamp  wiring  was beginning to be a problem as far back as transistor
   machines.  But  the  most fundamental fact is that there are very few
   signals  slow  enough to blink an LED these days! With slow CPUs, you
   could watch the bus register or instruction counter tick, but even at
   33/66/150MHz (let alone gigahertz speeds) it's all a blur.

   Despite  this, a couple of relatively recent computer designs of note
   have featured programmable blinkenlights that were added just because
   they looked cool. The Connection Machine, a 65,536-processor parallel
   computer  designed  in  the mid-1980s, was a black cube with one side
   covered  with  a  grid  of red blinkenlights; the sales demo had them
   evolving  {life}  patterns.  A few years later the ill-fated BeBox (a
   personal computer designed to run the BeOS operating system) featured
   twin  rows  of blinkenlights on the case front. When Be, Inc. decided
   to  get out of the hardware business in 1996 and instead ported their
   OS  to  the  PowerPC  and later to the Intel architecture, many users
   suffered  severely  from  the absence of their beloved blinkenlights.
   Before  long  an external version of the blinkenlights driven by a PC
   serial  port became available; there is some sort of plot symmetry in
   the fact that it was assembled by a German.

   Finally,  a  version  updated  for  the  Internet  has  been  seen on
   news.admin.net-abuse.email:

                       ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!
   Das Internet is nicht fuer gefingerclicken und giffengrabben. Ist eas
   y
   droppenpacket der routers und overloaden der backbone mit der spammen
   und der me-tooen.  Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das
   mausklicken sichtseeren keepen das bandwit-spewin hans in das pockets
   muss; relaxen und watchen das cursorblinken.

   This   newest   version   partly   reflects  reports  that  the  word
   `blinkenlights'  is  (in  1999)  undergoing something of a revival in
   usage,  but applied to networking equipment. The transmit and receive
   lights  on  routers,  activity lights on switches and hubs, and other
   network  equipment  often  blink  in  visually pleasing and seemingly
   coordinated  ways.  Although  this  is  different  in  some ways from
   register  readings, a tall stack of Cisco equipment or a 19-inch rack
   of  ISDN  terminals  can  provoke  a similar feeling of hypnotic awe,
   especially in a darkened network operations center or server room.

   The  ancestor  of the original blinkenlights posters of the 1950s was
   probably this:

   

   WWII-era machine-shop poster

   We  are  informed  that  cod-German  parodies  of this kind were very
   common  in  Allied  machine shops during and following WWII. Germans,
   then  as  now,  had  a  reputation for being both good with precision
   machinery and prone to officious notices.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {geef}]