Project Blinkenlights

Has some nice photos. More welcome!

And on the modern computer, there is:

Blinkenlights: PC Binary Emulating Visualizer

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31473846

https://archive.ph/GgGeZ

I was always fascinated by stories from older professors about how they could hear when something had gone wrong with an algorithm, because the sound would be wrong.

In my case, I could hear when some Windows malware (its indexer, updates, etc.) was running, because the computer would make funny noises. These days, everything is so silent, and the LEDs are gone, I only notice from the lag!

I sometimes wish there were still sounds, and more besides (e.g. sounds for strange network packets, and so on).

You can do a lot "artificially"; I set it up so my computer makes a frog croak sound when the LLMs finish cooking, and I have a colored orb in my notification bar showing the packet loss.

ju'i ro tcurista .e ro naltekno lukpipyprenu

.i le kompymacni na se pilno fi lo nu selfingypoksi kei .e lo nu mijgrabi

.i va'onai frili fa lo nu cnapygau le spinyverka kei .e lo nu blovyfuzli kei .e lo nu popkorka sepi'o lo spici sparkeli

.i le kompymacni na se verka lo dumbystedu .i .ei le rubrynekti sairviska cu kipygau le kotnypikci xance lo pokta

.i ko relka gi'e vatci le blinkenlaiti

I first ran across it over 30 years ago while I was still in school, and I'm sure it's been up longer than that.

https://illuminate.org/projects/thebaylights/