4 ms·

A Crystalfont 2x16 LCD with 4 cursor and tick/cross keys which sits just below the middle monitor of my triple-head programming setup. Normally displays date, t

by zh3 4y ago

A Crystalfont 2x16 LCD with 4 cursor and tick/cross keys which sits just below the middle monitor of my triple-head programming setup. Normally displays date, time, media volume and incoming email/voicemail counts. When a call arrives it shows the Caller ID (and contact name if recognised). The keys are used to adjust media volume and mute/unmute (and in hot weather, the left/right keys adjust the speed of a pair of 120mm PC fans that blow air over the keyboard).

shortrounddev 4y ago
I used to work for a company whose core product took forever to build (in maven) but we had to build it all the time. A coworker hooked up a USB LED traffic light to his macbook and wrote a driver for it that would display yellow when building, green when successfully built, and red when there were errors.
- wink 4y ago
  Two companies ago we had an actual old traffic light hooked up to that, but that was maybe a bit over the top.
  - zh3 4y ago
    I have a giant knife switch bolted to what looks like a thick slate base, which (reportedly, according to ebay seller) used to operate a lift in a goldmine in Colorado. Long term plan is to mount it to the wall, so when I leave the office at night I can throw this big old switch and turn everything off.
    - julian_t 4y ago
      Many (many!) years ago I worked with a PDP-8 that had ferrite core memory. Because the magnetic state was persistent, come 5pm we'd just throw the switch and turn the machine off. 9am the next day we'd turn it back on, and it would continue with whatever calculation it had been doing the night before. It would have been cool to have a real mad-scientist switch like that, though.
      - zh3 4y ago
        I started on PDP-11s and big old boards stuffed with 64x1kb RAM so I had it relatively easy. Not quite the same, but every morning the boss would boot the system with 5 sweeps across the toggle switches to key in the bootloader. After that, all we have to do was occasionally move the teletype back into its corner on the room when it went walkies. Have a look for "Vintage knife switch" on ebay; here's a current offering (only double pole): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295179145552 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295179145552

by zh3 4y ago

shortrounddev 4y ago

I used to work for a company whose core product took forever to build (in maven) but we had to build it all the time. A coworker hooked up a USB LED traffic light to his macbook and wrote a driver for it that would display yellow when building, green when successfully built, and red when there were errors.

wink 4y ago
Two companies ago we had an actual old traffic light hooked up to that, but that was maybe a bit over the top.
- zh3 4y ago
  I have a giant knife switch bolted to what looks like a thick slate base, which (reportedly, according to ebay seller) used to operate a lift in a goldmine in Colorado. Long term plan is to mount it to the wall, so when I leave the office at night I can throw this big old switch and turn everything off.
  - julian_t 4y ago
    Many (many!) years ago I worked with a PDP-8 that had ferrite core memory. Because the magnetic state was persistent, come 5pm we'd just throw the switch and turn the machine off. 9am the next day we'd turn it back on, and it would continue with whatever calculation it had been doing the night before. It would have been cool to have a real mad-scientist switch like that, though.
    - zh3 4y ago
      I started on PDP-11s and big old boards stuffed with 64x1kb RAM so I had it relatively easy. Not quite the same, but every morning the boss would boot the system with 5 sweeps across the toggle switches to key in the bootloader. After that, all we have to do was occasionally move the teletype back into its corner on the room when it went walkies. Have a look for "Vintage knife switch" on ebay; here's a current offering (only double pole): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295179145552 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295179145552