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IIRC, the default blinkenlighs on the CM-5 was apparently a LED for each of the 4096 "cores" (really a SIMD-lane), and whether or not that particular "core" is active. On means that SIMD-lane is active, off means its inactive. Kind of a glorified Microsoft Windows "CPU Performance" screen, except physical.

Given the regular pattern in Jurassic Park, I assume they reprogrammed the LEDs to look more futuristic.



I read somewhere that the pattern displayed by the CM-5 in the film was referred to as 'common and pleasing #6', as close as I can recall it. I've not seen a definition of the pattern other than it's actual output.


IIRC on CM-1/2 the LEDs reflected state of conditional execution of the individual VLSI packages (there is one LED per package, not one LED per CPU), on CM-5 it is just a bunch of LED matrices controlled more or less globally by I assume some BMC-like thing.


People who programmed those machines said that people often asked for programs that used those LED matrices as a display.




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