The original molly-guard was jury-rigged from plexiglass to prevent a programmer's young daughter Molly from pressing the BRS on an IBM 4341 server, after she had done so twice in one day. Molly-guardĪ Big Red Switch often includes a molly-guard, a cover that must be lifted to trip the switch. Data centers often have such kill switches near the entrance, and may release fire suppression systems as well. Although "hit the Big Red Switch" may still have a connotation of "reboot", current systems often have other means to accomplish this, like x86-based computers' Control-Alt-Delete key combination (sarcastically called the "three-finger salute" by frustrated users).īRBs in IT or industrial settings are still used as kill switches, which cut all power to a device or a group of devices in an emergency, similar in use to a nuclear reactor's Scram Button. Most modern computer systems, however, either omit a reset button or significantly reduce its visibility and/or access to prevent users from accidentally triggering it. This switch was often located on the front of a personal computer or on the back next to the power supply. DO NOT PRESS THE RED BUTTON CARTOON PCIt was part of the PSU and located on the right side of the PC system unit, but on the front of the IBM 5100. Īn early "Big Red Switch" was on the mid Seventies IBM 5100 computer, it later appeared on the first 8088 (8086) IBM PCs. In computing, the Big Red Button has historically referred to a system's "reset" button, a red momentary electrical switch used to reboot a computer. This attached a level of temptation to the button itself, and is often used in religious or philosophical allegory, a parallel to Adam and Eve's consumption of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. A character would at some point be warned, "Whatever you do, do not press the red button." By the end of the cartoon someone would invariably press it, usually resulting in a large explosion. Once contemporary definitions of the BRB gained popularity as a plot device in Looney Tunes the button became a running gag. It could also represent a "nuclear" or radical solution to a problem, much like "cutting the Gordian knot", and likely lead to the BRB's use as a reset button. In a real world case, Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov figuratively avoided pressing the Red Button by correctly identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm.īecause of this potential doomsday use, Cold-War-era fiction often featured a BRB as the final trigger for a self-destruct process. The disastrous consequences of a full-out nuclear war made the Big Red Button a symbol of the annihilation of humanity. A person in charge may be referred to as "having his/her finger on The Button". Symbolismĭuring the 20th-century's Cold War, the "Big Red Button" (sometimes just "The Button") referred to a device used to launch nuclear weapons. Therefore, particularly in the early mainframe computer era, people risked disciplinary action for activating the BRS of a production batch processing mainframe in a non-emergency situation (see molly-guard below). Because the use of a Big Red Switch would bring down a computer in an uncontrolled fashion, getting the machine up and running again could be a nontrivial and time-consuming task. On some mainframe designs, the emergency power-off switch would immediately physically disable the machine's power supply. The term has also sometimes been used for the power switch on IBM PCs. In hacker jargon, the shutdown button or power switch on a computer, especially the red "emergency pull" switch on IBM mainframe operator consoles.Firing or detonating a weapon, typically a nuclear device.Help call in emergencies or for disabled persons.A shut-down switch for catastrophic circumstances to avert further damage or to cause it, e.g., an "emergency power-off" button.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |