Blinkenlights

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Blinkenlights, 1970s-style.

ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

Originally, Blinkenlights were simply diagnostic lights on electronic devices. In some places, they still are. But that's boring.

Thanks to signs in "mock German" that appeared in various computer rooms in the 1950s, Blinkenlights became something for non-technical people to look at, instead of touching something they really shouldn't touch. From there, it was only a matter of time – less than a decade – for Blinkenlights to become a visual shorthand for high technology in general, not just computers ... and, in Hollywood, they were always blinking.

As computers became more ubiquitous, the trope faded from the public consciousness, having been supplanted by Extreme Graphical Representation. (Real Life 21st-century mainframes don't even have diagnostic lights any more, at least not where people can see them.) Nowadays it's used in works that purposefully invoke Zeerust, always paired with Beeping Computers.

For the more modern meaning of "blinkenlights" as lighting up particular windows in a building in order to send messages, see Skyscraper Messages.

Not to be confused with illumination for Winken, Blinken and Nod.

Examples of Blinkenlights include:

Film

Literature

  • In the very first scene in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the self-aware computer Mycroft ("Mike" to his friends) is described as using his blinkenlights to laugh:

"You asked what I knew." His binary read-out lights rippled back and forth — a chuckle.

  • Cyclops, the AI supercomputer from the 1985 novel The Postman by David Brin, has blinkenlights which turn out to be a plot point. The main character remembers news stories about the few AIs from just before the Apocalypse, and how their blinkenlights never fall into any kind of repeatable patterns. He realizes that Cyclops is a figurehead when he notices patterns where there should be none.

Live-Action TV

  • Shown in The Prisoner episode "The General". The fact that they switch off is a plot point.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: The set designers faked Blinkenlights in Engineering by sliding cutout screens back and forth behind backlit wall transparencies.
  • In the Space: 1999 episode "Voyager's Return", the device built to override Voyager's computer has blinkenlights that flash when it is connecting to or connected to the spacecraft... but not when the connection is terminated.
  • Knight Rider‍'‍s KITT had a simplified set of Blinkenlights inset into his front bumper.
  • IRAC from the 1970s Wonder Woman TV series had blinkenlights where one would expect to see a monitor screen, and - as shown in the page image - also where one wouldn't expect to see lights at all.

New Media

Video Games

Web Comics

  • In the defunct web comic Commedia 2X00, Lord only knows what half the stuff in Dottore's lab do; among the Cow Tools allegedly stored in boxes in his basement are full out shout-outs to famous technobabble, including turbo-encabulators, vgrep scanners, and Blinkenlights.

Real Life

  • The very earliest Personal Computers, including the groundbreaking Altair 8800, had no keyboard or monitor (or any way of connecting either). Programs were entered in raw binary via switches on the computer's front panel -- and their output was returned via a row of blinkenlights, also on the front panel.
  • Those annoying flashing blue lights on Netgear routers. You know what they are.