On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 05:47:56PM -0400, Michael wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> > > > - the LCD now shows the proper symbol when a PCMCIA card is present
> > > Hmm, speaking of the LCD - I wonder if we can (ab)use it to show some
> > > kernel stuff - like CPU usage, panic messages and such.
> > > ( well, I know we /can/ - the question is more about if we /should/ )
> > 
> > I'd like to have the ability, at least. Perhaps some sort of sysctl
> > knob could be devised for that purpose? It'd be neat to have it do a
> > super-abbreviated top(1) and show something like "21 pids, 4MB free"
> Nice idea, I'll have a look what information is easily available.
> 
> > What I'd like to see it do is show a spinning / in the LCD when
> > loading NetBSD like Solaris does :-)
> When /loading/ NetBSD - then you'd have to hack the 2nd stage boot loader.

Ah, true. Perhaps that could be some sort of luxury ofwboot for tadpole
people maintained in pkgsrc.

> > (I have yet to figure out why I like those spinning bars so much,
> > but... oh well :)
> It's useful :)
> Hmm, we'd have to come up with a generic interface to CPU-controlled LCDs,
> LEDs and do on found on various hardware - we don't want anything
> Tadpole-specific in - say - sd...

True. I can think of one other system I would have liked it on, the
AlphaStation 600 5/266 I used to have, but it died long ago (PSU blew and
toasted almost everything in the system). However, I suspect there are a
bunch of systems out there with LCDs and LEDs and such that can be tinkered
with. We could have an MI interface to control LCDs and LEDs, and MI hooks
where they need to be to do the real work.

This reminds me of the BLINK option to blink the power LED according to load
average, so there is precedent, after all.

- Sean

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