Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,687
edits
Blinkenlights: Difference between revisions
→Live-Action TV
No edit summary |
|||
| (31 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:IRAC 01.jpg|thumb|400px|link=Wonder Woman (TV series)|Blinkenlights, 1970s-style.]]
{{quote|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 [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|"mock German"]] that appeared in various computer rooms in [[The Fifties|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]].
[[Wikipedia]] has a page about [[wikipedia:Blinkenlights|Blinkenlights]]. [[The Jargon File]] has [http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/blinkenlights.html a page about them], too.▼
Not to be confused with illumination for [[Nursery Rhyme|Winken, Blinken and Nod]].
{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
* The Q-Bomb in ''[[The Mouse That Roared]]'' was covered in Blinkenlights.
* Lampshaded at Alpha Beta Base in ''[[Airplane II: The Sequel]]''. They don't know what all those lights do, they just keep blinking on and off.
* The Bat Computer in ''[[Batman: The Movie]]''.
== [[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:
{{quote|"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. {{spoiler|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". {{spoiler|The fact that they switch off}} is a plot point.
* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'': The set designers faked Blinkenlights in Engineering
* 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)|''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]] ==
* [[Wikipedia]] has a page about [[wikipedia:Blinkenlights|Blinkenlights]].
▲
** And [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blinkenlights so does] the [[Urban Dictionary]].
== [[Video Games]] ==
* "Blinken Lights II", from ''[[Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes]]'', is an exotic puzzle that combines blinkenlights (as the name suggests), [[Everyone Knows Morse|Morse code]] and the ''Simon'' game.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In the defunct web comic ''[[Commedia 2X00]]'', Lord only knows what half the stuff in [https://web.archive.org/web/20180801170850/https://commedia2x00.wordpress.com/ 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 Computer]]s, including the groundbreaking [[w:Altair 8800|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. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x706yCCTyO0&feature=related You know what they are].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Pages Original to All The Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Reality Is Unrealistic]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Net Culture]]
[[Category:Technology Tropes]]
| |||