[TriLUG] ethernet ports on Linksys wrt54g are autosense

[Rick DeNatale]

Back when I was a young guy, one of the things which defined a
computer was that it had LOTS of blinking lights on something called
the control panel. Most of the lights displayed the current value of
bits in various important registers. I knew experienced programmers
and operators who could tell what the machine was doing, or if it had
gone into a loop by seeing patterns in the lights.
An IBM 360 typically had a control panel with dimensions measured in
feet, and two dimensional arrays of lights.
Minicomputers (like Novas, PDP-5/8s and pre-VAX PDP-11s had control
panels measured in inches, usually with only a row or two of lights).
Early micro-computers like the Altair were similar in this respect to
minicomputers, but then the personal computer came along and the
lights tended to go away.


On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 09:04:32 -0400, Aaron S. Joyner <aaron at joyner.ws> wrote:
> Dave Sorenson wrote:
> 
> >Most non-geeks don't care about blinkin lights (except at Christmas). They
> >want an appliance they can plug in and forget about without having to worry
> >about configuring, checking, testing, experimenting with etc.. Why do you
> >think there are so many open WAP's in neighborhoods. It's not because it's
> >hard to set up security, it's because people are too lazy to RTFM. I for one
> >want all the blinky bling bling I can get! ;)
> >
> >Dave S.
> >
> >
> Yeah, true computer geeks and LEDs have a strangely symbiotic
> relationship, as exhibited here:
> 
> http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20040904
> 
> Aaron S. Joyner
> 
> 
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