24 May
2016
24 May
'16
10:07 a.m.
On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 9:34 AM, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
wrote:
Yep. Later model models of the Honeywell 6180 replaced all of those display
panels with a minicomputer that generated video terminal displays of the
data.
-- Charles
The improved
reliablity of LSI logic over discrete and SSI, and the
creation of ROM chips of
reasonable capacity (to hold the bootstrap or a
monitor), would bring about the demise of the blinkenlight front panel.
Note that only a couple of the first
microcomputers had blinkenlight
front panels, and they were pretty much gone from
minis and mainframes by
the late-70s.
The demise was really about money. All those lights, switches, wiring,
metalwork, etc. for a full panel was EXPENSIVE.