> college recruiting materials might well brag that at their institution, there were not one, but two computers on campus.
Our community college highlighted their Vax minicomputer by having a special window that showed all the flashing LED's to passers by. But when PC's became the "in thing", they felt embarrassed and covered the window with PC posters. Poor Vax, lots of memories together. It was an early lesson in IT = star-today-washup-tomorrow.
We had one of the first class of HP3000 minicomputers, which was both highly advanced, with it's stack architecture and variable length memory segmentation, but also very disappointing. But on the flashing lights front, the first design class did not disappoint (see console in upper right quadrant - lots of LEDS - which were new and only red in those days - and paddle switches): http://www.hpmuseum.net/images/3000_2615A_1973-25.jpg
Our community college highlighted their Vax minicomputer by having a special window that showed all the flashing LED's to passers by. But when PC's became the "in thing", they felt embarrassed and covered the window with PC posters. Poor Vax, lots of memories together. It was an early lesson in IT = star-today-washup-tomorrow.