[cynwoody]

The rare Unix system crash was usually issued as something like
PANIC! Memory fault. Core dumped.
at the system console.

Linus's original code: http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v3.6.6/kernel/panic.c

It took printf-style arguments.

[eggman]

That would be with SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessor) extensions. The original original was for single processor machines.