>Oh, those switches and lights are mostly because the hardware and software
>used to screw up fairly often, and by looking at the lights, and flipping
>switches the operation of the computer could be single stepped (one
>instruction per button push) and errors identified so they could be
>corrected.
Depends on the computer system also. On the Honeywell DPS-8 we had all
kinds of Blinken Lights and Flippen Switches, but they were for setting the
configuration of the system. Using them we could tell it how many
processors, what memory banks, and drives to talk to, etc.
Let's not forget the Rotary number switches, I've operated at least 3
different computers that had them. Although the computer controlling the
engineering plant of a Oliver Hazzard Perry Class Frigate wouldn't be
recognized by most as a computer.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh_at_holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
|
http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
Received on Fri Mar 12 1999 - 20:17:44 GMT