Why blinkenlights ?

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Dave McGuire wrote:
>   Well, there were no such things as EPROMs (or chips at all, for that 
> matter) on the earliest lights-and-switches machines.  I think 
> single-stepping and debugging of very low-level stuff is much easier 
> with a lights-and-switches front panel.  Numeric displays are nice, but 
> I find many keypad interfaces to be very cumbersome.  The H-8 keypad is 
> probably one of the nicest I've seen (it seems to make the most sense 
> anyway) but even it isn't as clear and unambiguous as "set the switches 
> to the address you want, and press 'load address'".
> 
>   For today, though...blinking lights are Just Plain Cool.

There have been times, though, when I've had a recent RS/6000 not 
booting successfully, when I would have loved to have a panel.  The 
RS/6000 diagnostic numbers are much better than most methods, but 
there's nothing better than being able to examine the registers themselves.

Peace...  Sridhar