Found a decent use for a PC...

From: Barry Peterson <bmpete_at_swbell.net>
Date: Mon Feb 23 14:37:06 1998

On Sun, 22 Feb 1998 23:28:08 -0800 (PST), you said:

<snip>

>They'd be extremely handy as a diagnostic tool, especially when there's a
>problem with a video card or memory, and instead of having to count a
>bunch of stupid beeps to determine what the error code is, you can just
>read it off the front panel.
>
>Those front panels had value that was overlooked when the modern machines
>were ushered in.

I have a 286 by PC's Limited (Dell) with a "Smart VU" panel on the
front. It consists of a red-led section which, as far as I can tell,
shows that the thing is running. It also contains a green-led matrix
which tells what's going; ROM1, ROM2, etc. A:, B:, C:, and then shows
the track# being accessed. It shows mem test count and error messages
too.

Pretty slick and useful, but when I sold one to an older lady for word
processing and genealogy work, she asked what that stuff meant... I
just told her to ignore it.
_______________

Barry Peterson bmpete_at_swbell.net
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
Received on Mon Feb 23 1998 - 14:37:06 GMT