Re: [Coco][Color Computer] Andy´s ASCII-Circuit

[Neil Morrison]

I learned programming on a Burroughs B6700 which had a huge incandescent
lamp front panel display. ISTR that in emergencies it created large (about
12" high) panic messages on the displays.

Neil

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ward Griffiths" <wdg3rd at comcast.net>
...
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.