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blinkenlights
(foldoc) | 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]
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blinkenlights
(jargon) | 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 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 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:
[gefingerpo]
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.
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