War Games

Having seen Wargames no fewer than 100 times (I was 14 or 15 when it came out and I was a nerd) I would like to make several comments: First, why use a 300 baud acoustic coupler (which strangely seems to operate at 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 19200 and 38400 during different scenes) when you've got a perfectly good 1200 baud direct connect sitting on the monitor? Secondly, in the scene when WOPR CALLS HIM BACK and he looks all freaked and pulls the plug out of the phone, how does the game timer keep running AFTER he has disconnected from WOPR? Thirdly, the cheapy paperback book made when the movie came out, based on the movie, descibes a much more hackeresque computer in his room...it describes how he put it together with "chewing gum and baling wire" and how Malvin and Jim Sting helped him with parts and advice and how he learned more spending one summer with them at the computer center than he had in a year in Mr. Liggett's biology class. Fourthly, not directly related but it seems that every few years a counter-culture type movie comes out that inspires tech-heads to go "Free the World" 1983 - Wargames - Hackers 1991 - Pump Up the Volume - Pirate Radio DJs (read alt.radio.pirate) 1996 - The Craft - Counter-Culture Religion There's a reason CompuPro was thanked. I read in an article about 10 years ago that the monitor on David's desk was REALLY being driven by a CompuPro backstage, which was programmed to spew out his keystrokes whatever keys he pressed. Apparently, they used some memory mapped video card on which the scan rate could be modified (along with the monitor) to match synchronization from the film cameras. All the screens in the War Room were REAL BTW...they were driven by an HP Vector Graphics generator coupled with a video projector of some sort and then color was added in post-production. Although my memory of the article could be a bit off. Wargames STILL has the most REALISTIC (strangely, enough) computer special effects (screens, etc) of any movie ever...even with movies like Sneakers and The Net. It's important to remember that Wargames wasn't about hacking and computers. It was about the foolishness of the Cold War. Basically it says, "Hey if a dumb computer can figure out how stupid it is, why can't we?" BTW General Berringer's line (something like) "I don't know about you but I'm not about to trust the security of the nation to a SILICON diode!" has a real-life origin. There was, in fact, in the late 70s or very early 80s a false missile launch detection resulting from a fried passive component like a diode. Somewhere I have an article about it. In the book, when David walks in while Jim Sting is underneath his desk, he says "Hey Captain Crunch, I'm from Ma Bell and Boy is she pissed!" One other thought, another strangely realistic hacking sequence is in Real Genius (btw just found out that Jordon in Real Genius and Judy in Revenge of the Nerds were played by the same actress)...it's goofy in that Ollifeld is trying to break into a government computer trying passwords of AAAAAAAA, AAAAAAAB and so on...but the error responses are classic VAX/VMS. I occasionally have Hacker Movie nights where all my computer friends (some of whom were REAL hackers but I plead the fifth) come over and we watch Wargames and Johnny Mnemonic or The Net and Sneakers, etc etc. (Sandra Bullock in a black two-piece can come over and interface with me anytime!) =-) Anthony Clifton - Wirehead Prime