Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!amdahl!rtech!markd@rtech.UUCP
From: markd@rtech.UUCP (Mark P. Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Lights on computers (was Re: Cray architecture)
Message-ID: <1890@rtech.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 88 04:25:08 GMT
References: <3671@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Sender: news@rtech.UUCP
Lines: 19

From article <3671@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, by kyw@cs.purdue.EDU (Ko-Yang Wang):
> In article <1461@ut-emx.UUCP> reeder@ut-emx.UUCP (William P. Reeder) writes:
>>
>>I have suggested to many sales reps that they need a bank of gee-whiz
>>lights on the front which blink faster as the load goes up.  That way
>>people who walk by our machine room and look through the big window
>>could see something "impressive".
> 
Lights are more than just something to look at.  On a multiprocessor
system where each CPU has a light for when it is active the lights 
dynamically and instantaneously show system activity amoung all the
processors.  This is very useful in determining the amount of parallelism
a program is achieving.  Whenever I want to find out how an application
is performing on our Sequent Symmetry I just go look at the lights.  

Mark <>
<>                                  <>                                  <> 
Mark P. Diamond  		 {sun, cbosgd, amdahl, mtxinu}!rtech!markd
from Sequent Computer Systems onsite at Relational Technology