Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-262546-20140907075501

This has always troubled me. When a stargate is dialed for a 7 chevron address, the 3 chevrons on the right side light up in descending order. Then, the left three chevrons light up in ascending order. And lastly, the top chevron lights up.

However, how does the stargate know whether you're dialing a 7, 8, or 9 chevron address? For example, if you start dialing an 8 chevron address, how does the stargate know to activate the right 4 chevrons before going onto the left 3? Because naturally, the Stargate wouldn't know when you're done inputting glyphs until you've done the final glyph.

I've considered the fact that the gate might infer what type of address is being dialed based on how much power is being pumped into it. But, Atlantis' stargate always has a ZPM attached to it, and as such, it would always be ready to dial either a 7 or 8 glyph address. 