Peedometer N. A Pattern Of Lights Displayed On A Linear Set Of LEDs (today) Or Nixie Tubes (yesterday, On Ancient Mainframes).

Peedometer N. A Pattern Of Lights Displayed On A Linear Set Of LEDs (today) Or Nixie Tubes (yesterday, On Ancient Mainframes).

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speedometer n.

A pattern of lights displayed on a linear
set of LEDs (today) or nixie tubes (yesterday, on ancient
mainframes). The pattern is shifted left every N times the
operating system goes through its main loop. A swiftly moving
pattern indicates that the system is mostly idle; the speedometer
slows down as the system becomes overloaded. The speedometer on
Sun Microsystems hardware bounces back and forth like the eyes on
one of the Cylons from the wretched "Battlestar Galactica" TV
series.

Historical note: One computer, the GE 600 (later Honeywell 6000)
actually had an analog speedometer on the front panel,
calibrated in instructions executed per second.

Related:

peedometer: n. A pattern of lights displayed on a linear set of LEDs (today) or nixie tubes (yesterday, on ancient mainframes).
The pattern is shifted left every N times the operating system goes through its {main loop}....
GCOS /jee'kohs/ n. A quick-and-dirty clone of System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970
originally called GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System)....
GCOS:: /jee'kohs/ n. A {quick-and-dirty} {clone} of System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970
originally called GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System)....
boot v.,n. [techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] To load and initialize the operating system on a machine.
This usage is no longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some derivatives that are still jargon....
Multics:: /muhl'tiks/ n. [from "MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service"] An early (late 1960s) timesharing operating system co-designed by a consortium including MIT
GE, and Bell Laboratories. Multics was very innovative for its time --- among other things, it introduced the idea of treating all devices uniformly as special files....
Multics /muhl'tiks/ n. [from "MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service"] An early time-sharing operating system co-designed by a consortium including MIT
GE, and Bell Laboratories as a successor to CTSS....
patch 1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature.
A patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be incorporated permanently into the program....
yoyo mode: n. The state in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down.
Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits....
yoyo mode n. The state in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down.
Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits....