Computing and Industrial
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.
An early "Big Red Switch" was on the mid Seventies IBM 5100 computer, it later appeared on the first 8088 (8086) IBM PCs. It was part of the PSU and located on the right side of the PC system unit, but on the front of the IBM 5100.
This switch was often located on the front of a personal computer or on the back next to the power supply. 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. 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).
BRBs 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. Data centers often have such kill switches near the entrance, and may release fire suppression systems as well.
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“Dead power is everywhere among us—in the forest, chopping down the songs; at night in the industrial landscape, wasting and stiffening the new life; in the streets of the city, throwing away the day. We wanted something different for our people: not to find ourselves an old, reactionary republic, full of ghost-fears, the fears of death and the fears of birth. We want something else.”
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