[nintendo1889]

The blinkerlights panel isn't even functional. But still cool looking .

At the computer museum in Alpharetta Georgia, none of the computers are on but the connection machine panel is on.

[monocasa]

The blinken lights panel on the original machine was functional, each small cluster of processors controlled one LED and there was a microcode instruction for latching the LEDs.

[julianz]

We found this museum completely by accident on a visit to the US, and it is a delight. When I saw the Connection Machine all lit up, I squealed :)

It seems like the reason it's on like that is because it used to belong to the NSA so they took all the insides out and destroyed them when the machine was donated. The blinkenlights are driven by Raspberry Pis or something similar.