My memory is that they were chunky machines, operated solely by keyboard - no mouse - with a screen where a blinking cursor invited you to fill in various boxes with your script.

BBC: Happy Birthday, Breakfast - and newsroom computers

In the late 1970s he arrived at a client, Caterpillar, and learned that the information he had once held exclusively and provided by hand--bond prices--was now arriving electronically from a rival and blinking away on a computer screen.

FORBES: Fear, Greed And Technology

Sitting in the control tower on a recent weekday, Ron Anderson, the dispatcher, and Pete Falotico, the tower operator, pointed to a screen that showed blinking, malfunctioning symbols indicating where damaged signals in the station and the river tunnels were slowly sputtering back to life a few more after each overnight shift of repair work.

WSJ: PATH's Road Back Is Rocky

And only later still, in the quiet car retrieved from valet parking and en route back to the Laventura, Constance carefully blinking away her own drunkenness at the wheel, did the equally tipsy Fanny Mann squint at her flashing little screen, recover the message, and then phone the hospital to receive the news.

NEWYORKER: Shauntrelle