Blinkenlights (jargon)
The Blinkenlights (also blinkenlichten ) is a made-up word from a warning sign mocking text in a spelling that satirizes German and Dutch. The origin of the expression could be traced back to the year 1955 in data centers of the company IBM . The word refers to the warning lights on a machine console . In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, such texts spread around the world and also appeared in a different form in Germany.
Text example
An earlier version:
Attention everything Lookenskeepers! The computer |
A modified form from Germany, in which the expression Blinkenlights occurs:
ATTENTION This room is fullfilled with special electronic equippment. |
Such and similar texts were written during the Second World War and afterwards under the Allies as a satirical of the Germans.
See also
literature
- Michael-Alexander Beisecker: The lexicon of PC terms . Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft, 2004, ISBN 978-3-8125-0592-5 , p. 65 ( limited online version (Google Books) )
- John Chirillo: Hack Attacks Encyclopedia: A Complete History of Hacks, Cracks, Phreaks, and Spies over Time . John Wiley & Sons, 2001, ISBN 0-471-05589-1 , pp. 725-726.
- Steven Pinker : The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language . Harper 2006, ISBN 0-06-095833-2 , p. 113.
- Eric S. Raymond : The New Hacker's Dictionary . MIT Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-262-68092-9 , p. 74 ( restricted online version (Google Books) )
- Erin Jansen: NetLingo: the Internet Dictionary . Netlingo, 2002, ISBN 978-0-9706396-7-7 , p. 119 ( restricted online version (Google Books) )
Web links
- Blinkenlights . Urban Dictionary
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Jargon File, (version 4.4.7) , entry in the Jargon File , accessed on December 30, 2009