![Blinkenlights sign](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Blinkenlights_sign.svg)
Blinkenlights is a
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
for
Blinkenlights#Actual blinkenlights, diagnostic lights usually on the
front panel
A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machine's internal registers and memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of indicator lamps, digit and symbol displays, to ...
s on old
mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
s,
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
s, many early
microcomputer
A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...
s, and modern
network hardware
Networking hardware, also known as network equipment or computer networking devices, are electronic devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network. Specifically, they mediate data transmission in ...
. It has been seen as a
skeuomorph on many modern office machines, most notably on photocopiers.
Etymology
The
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET A ...
provides the following
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
:
Although the sign might initially appear to be in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and uses an approximation of
German grammar
The grammar of the German language is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages.
Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of ...
, it is composed largely of words that are either near-homonyms of English words or (in the cases of the longer words) actual English words that are rendered in a faux-German spelling. As such, the sign is generally comprehensible by many English speakers regardless of whether they have any fluency in German, but mostly incomprehensible to German speakers with no knowledge of English. Much of the humor in these signs was their intentionally incorrect language.
Michael J. Preston relates the sign as being posted above
photocopier
A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers u ...
s in offices as a warning not to mess with the machine in the first print reference from 1974.
The sign is also reported to have been seen on an
electron microscope
An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
at the
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
in the 1950s. Such pseudo-German parodies were common in
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
machine shops during and following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and an example photocopy is shown in the ''Jargon File''.
The ''Jargon File'' also mentions that German hackers had developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster, in fractured English:
Actual blinkenlights
The bits and digits in the earliest mechanical and
vacuum tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied.
The type kn ...
-based computers were typically large and few, making it easy to see and often hear activity. Then, for decades, computers incorporated arrays of indicator lamps in their control panels, indicating the values carried on the address, data, and other internal
buses
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
, and in various registers. These could be used for diagnosing or "single-stepping" a halted machine, but even with the machine operating normally, a skilled operator could interpret the high-speed blur of the lamps to tell which section of a large program was executing, whether the program was caught in an
endless loop
, also called Eiko or Peko, is a female J-pop singer-songwriter, and producer who is currently affiliated with Heart Company. She is best known for singing the opening themes of the anime series ''Higurashi When They Cry''. Eiko also handles a s ...
, and so on.
With rising processor
clock rate
In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pr ...
s, increased memory sizes, and improved interactive debugging tools, such panel lights gradually lost their usefulness, though today most devices have indicators showing power on/off status, hard disk activity, network activity, and other indicators of "signs of life".
The original IBM PC could have a
diagnostics card plugged into it that used
LEDs
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...
to show what part of the memory it was using, and show the
memory address
In computing, a memory address is a reference to a specific memory location used at various levels by software and hardware. Memory addresses are fixed-length sequences of digits conventionally displayed and manipulated as unsigned integers. Su ...
and
data code
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...
on 7-segment displays whenever the card was manually locked or automatically triggered.
The
Connection Machine
A Connection Machine (CM) is a member of a series of massively parallel supercomputers that grew out of doctoral research on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann architecture of computers by Danny Hillis at Massachusetts Institute of Techno ...
, a -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
Conway's Game of Life
The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further ...
patterns.
The
CPU load monitors on the front of
BeBox
The BeBox is a dual CPU personal computer, briefly sold by Be Inc. to run the company's own operating system, BeOS. It has PowerPC CPUs, its I/O board has a custom "GeekPort", and the front bezel has "Blinkenlights".
The BeBox made its debut ...
es were also called "blinkenlights".
Several computer components, such as the Ballistix Tactical Tracer memory modules
from
Crucial Technology
Micron Technology, Inc. is an American producer of computer memory and computer data storage including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, and USB flash drives. It is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Its consumer products, including ...
and the
NVidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
Titan GTX,
have user-controllable lights that can be configured to show useful information, such as the memory capacity used and the temperature of the components.
This word gave its name to several projects, including
screen saver
Screen Savers or screensaver or ''variation'', may refer to:
* Screensaver, computer programs intended to preserve CRT monitors from "burn-in"
** GNOME ''Screensaver'', GNOME Project's screen blanking tool
** Google Pack ''Screensaver'', a termi ...
s, hardware gadgets, and other nostalgic things. Some notable enterprises include the German
Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an '' eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters (called ''Erfa-Kreise'') i ...
's
Project Blinkenlights
Project Blinkenlights was a light installation in the Haus des Lehrers building at the Alexanderplatz in Berlin that transformed the building front into a giant low-resolution monochrome computer screen. The installation was created by the ...
and the Blinkenlights Archaeological Institute.
See also
*
Faxlore
Faxlore is a sort of folklore: humorous texts, folk poetry, folk art, and urban legends that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by fax machine. Xeroxlore or photocopylore is similar material circulated by photocopying; compare samizdat i ...
*
Macaronic language
Macaronic language uses a mixture of languages, particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different languages). Hybrid words ...
References
Further reading
*
* {{cite book , author-last=Hofstadter , author-first=Douglas Richard , author-link=Douglas Richard Hofstadter , title=Metamagical themas: questing for the essence of mind and pattern , publisher=
Basic Books
Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York, now an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.
H ...
, date=1996 , page=569 , isbn=978-0-465-04566-2
External links
DEC indicator panels
Computer jargon
Computer humor
Tech humour