blinkenlights

blinkenlights
 /blink'@n.li:tz/, n.

   [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 at
   33/66/150MHz 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 easy
   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:

   [gefingerpoken.jpg]

   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.
    

blinkenlights

   /blink'*n-li:tz/ Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer,
   especially a {dinosaur}.  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!

     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 1959 at Stanford
   University 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}.

   [{Jargon File}]