grind crank

grind crank

A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the side ofa monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise andcauses the computer to run faster. Usually one does not referto a grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriategesture and noise. See grind.

Historical note: At least one real machine actually had agrind crank - the R1, a research machine built toward theend of the days of the great vacuum tube computers, in 1959.R1 (also known as "The Rice Institute Computer" (TRIC) andlater as "The Rice University Computer" (TRUC)) had asingle-step/free-run switch for use when debugging programs.Since single-stepping through a large program was rathertedious, there was also a crank with a cam and geararrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button.This allowed one to "crank" through a lot of code, then slowdown to single-step for a bit when you got near the code ofinterest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter,and then keep on cranking.