[Tutor] Magic numbers

[Cameron Simpson]

On 06Aug2021 11:08, Phil <phillor9 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Looping forever to create a Cylon effect (everyone remembers Lorne 
>Green in Battlestar Galactica, don't they?).

Aye.

The PDP-11s at uni had a front panel display which could show any memory 
address (as a row of bits, of course). We ran a kernel which updated a 
Cylon display in a memory address in the kernel's idle loop. When the 
system was idle or lightly loaded the effect was smooth and when the 
system was busy the effect was jerky. As handy as a flame graph for load 
:-)

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au>