Front panel switches - what did they do?

[Charles Anthony]

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Charles Anthony <
charles.unix.pro at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 9:44 AM, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> It probably still impressed the suits when they walked the data center.
>> I've done data center tours with row after row of HP or Dell x86 servers
>> and it's not much to look at.
>>
>>
> Definitely.
>
> Several OSes would show distinctive 'idle' patterns on the lights, this
> provided a quick visual cue about system load for the big multi-user
> systems.
>
> As I understand it, the Transputer (an early multicpu system designed to
> parallel computation had a simple buf effective display -- an LED for for
> each CPU indicatiing if the CPU was working or idle, this told you at a
> glance if you parallelization algortihim was effective.
>
>
Oops. Connection Machine, not Transputer.



> -- Charles
>
>