desirably illustrated graphically in the rain delay led 48 by the flash pattern described earlier in fig6 this is accomplished in the ckleds step of the main3 portion of the main control loop which is shown herein as fig2 in this step the software generates the word or bit information necessary to light the led 39 s in an appropriate fashion one step 140 is to query the status of the rain delay count if the rain delay count is greater than zero then the flashing of the rain delay led is enabled in step 142 as part of the ckleds step of the main control loop controller 2 desirably includes a self test routine that may be selectively implemented to determine if controller 2 is functioning properly step 150 in the main control loop as shown in fig1 desirably implements the self test routine identified as 34 slftst 34 referring first to fig2 self test is initiated by pressing and holding set time button 16 and set day button 18 while applying power to the controller alternatively the self test feature can be initiated by grounding a self test switch input on a port of microcomputer 50 referring to fig2 24 at slftst the program initializes the ram variables and timers that will be used by self test this includes a self test timer which will cause the program to exit the self test mode and resume the irrigation controller mode when sufficient time has elapsed if the self test was initiated by pressing the switches when.