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Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

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Article URL: https://fabiensanglard.net/jurrasic_park_computers/index.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915709

Points: 806

# Comments: 208

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809 points · 208 comments · 查看原帖

  1. pivo

    My wife worked for Thinking Machines back then. I remember that they'd asked Cray to loan them a supercomputer for the film because that's the computer used in the book. Cray brushed them off, so they turned to Thinking Machines who were happy to do it. To thank them, the producers rented a theater in Cambridge, MA to screen the film just for Thinking Machines and I was also able to attend. By far the biggest reactions from the audience that night were when the CM-5 was shown for the first time and then when the young actress says, "It's a Unix system. I know this"

  2. kalleboo

    > It is unclear how Jurassic Park crew got their hands on a Motorola Envoy The head of frogdesign (Hartmut Esslinger) ended up running into Spielberg on a plane and showed it to him. The one in the movie is an original mockup. Source: https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/jurassic-park-tablet-d... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46752261

  3. kalleboo

    > Some code associated with Nedryland is visible on screen. It looks like actual source code[9] with Classic Mac OS API functions calls The source code shown is example code included with the Macintosh Programmers Workshop, Apple's original IDE for the Mac. Originally sold as a separate product, eventually it was provided on the Developer CDs and then as a free online download as serious developers had moved to CodeWarrior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer's_Worksho... One of the windows shows the example for how to make a HyperCard XCMD and the other one looks like an MPW script for using Apple's Projector source control. edit: Found the files in question in a copy of MPW 3.1. Line endings have been converted from CR to LF and the character set from MacOS Roman to UTF-8 to display easily in modern browsers MPW 3.1:Examples:HyperXExamples:Reduce.p https://kalleboo.com/l

  4. amccollum

    My uncle (John Monsour) worked on this movie as the “24 Frame Computer Sync Engineer”. Because film cameras and CRT monitors have different frame rates, you needed to use specialized electronics to synchronize them with the camera frame rate otherwise you would have banding and weird moving artifacts on all the screens. It’s crazy to imagine needing to do this for all the screens visible in these shots. Later monitor technologies like LCDs don’t have this issue because they don’t have the same moving electron beam illuminating each line of pixels, and it also became cheaper to just replace all the computer screens with CG, so eventually this specialized technical work wasn’t needed anymore, and my uncle ended up doing other things on the movies he worked on.

  5. gdubs

    It was indeed a Thinking Machines CM-5 — Nedry actually mentioned them in his line about how Hammond wouldn't be able to find anyone "anybody who can network 8 connection machines". An actual assembled CM-5 actually cost closer to a million dollars. But, from what I remember the one in the control room is a shell. In the CM-1 and CM-2, the LEDs were actual status indicators on the processors, which Tamiko Theil and the other designers had the engineers move to be at the edge of the boards, so that they'd shine through the case. Super cool. But by the CM-5, they were run off a simple microcontroller. They went bust not long after this movie. I made a YouTube video on the history of the Connection Machine – it was a lot of work, and if you're interested in this sort of thing I think you'll enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaNuVR75cwY

  6. rakel_rakel

    What a great post! I would love to read more of these for other films. > Everything in the set was real. We couldn't fake any of it, because audiences are so sophisticated now in their knowledge of computers. > ... > - Cory Faucher (Special Effects Coordinator) This sentiment seems to run throughout the movie, and I believe it's why it's held up so well in terms of visuals, I don't think it would have aged nearly as well as it has if more CGI (or other ways of "faking" things) had been been used. As for the question (in <references[9]>): > Some code associated with Nedryland is visible on screen. It looks like actual source code[9] with Classic Mac OS API functions calls. That looks like old Pascal, and since the window has MPW (Macintosh Programmers Workshop) in the title, that's probably it?

  7. MWil

    I feel like I'm picking up on more intentional or if not, lore-compatible, examples of John Hammond's "spare no expense" going towards as much the illusion of control as any actual innovations/control. Are they columns in the building load-bearing? You know, the ones with giant chunks chipped out to be more aesthetic and look like fossil digging work. Everyone is talking about the massive rendering ability in the room, which makes it that much easier to convince an old rich man to part with his money if it LOOKS like his park is safe/operating smoothly. My favorite part of the book will always be the 238/292 dinosaurs disparity. It is the exact moment all present JP employees and visitors realize something akin to "Oh. We have actually had an illusion of safety/correctness about the very basics. We can no longer assume anything about this island, even the very basics, is more than illusi

  8. nobleach

    We just watched this movie last night (as a tribute to Sam Neill). I loved all the SGI hardware. Although the Irix FSN file explorer scene made me cring. It was excurciating watching Lex navigate. On that era of hardware, midnight commander would have been my jam. (or honestly `ls` just like it is now). I did love seeing Dennis pounding on that Apple ADB keyboard (even though there was no way that'd be hooked to an SGI Indy unless he did serious work). Just for giggles, I hit up eBay to see what a Quadra 700 was going for. Wait, WHAT??? 1500 - 2500 USD??? For an antique that will do nothing all that useful? Wow. Wish I still had my Macintosh SE that I could sell to put my kid through college....