It is so much easier today. Back then, we had to execute a number of instructions to alter the lights. It took some effort to find the right sequence to leave only a word without extraneous lights.
Regards, Richard Schuh ________________________________ From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of McKown, John Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 11:55 AM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Immediate instructions (was "nonames") Reminds me, vaguely, of putting x'DEADBEEF' in the PSW with the WAIT bit on (hard wait). But I don't remember what system did that. It is now one of my favorite things to put in R15 before abending (S0C1). -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and its content is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this transmission, or taking any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ________________________________ From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schuh, Richard Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 1:51 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Immediate instructions (was "nonames") The 7080 had a fairly large array of lights. At EOJ, there was always a single successful completion written to the console, or a few messages describing the error if unsuccessful. Following a good completion, we sometimes tried to write routines that would end with a word spelled out in the lights. A popular word was "TILT". "OOPS" was also popular, but a bit trickier to create. We didn't mess with the machine status if there was a problem - we didn't want to destroy anything that might be pertinent to the debugging effort. After all, we would have been shooting at our own toes. Regards, Richard Schuh