Computer Rental

I was once approached by a leadperson who wanted to rent a KA10 (DEC PDP-10) front panel for use in a film, which I later found out was _Swordfish_. The script at that time involved a "hacker" somehow accomplishing things with a disused KA10 found in a storeroom at MIT. It seemed implausible to me that the "hacker" wouldn't have been better off with a Pentium laptop, but hey, it's a movie. They actually wanted a whole KA10, but weren't able to get one, as there are probably only two or three left in existence. They offered me about $500 if memory serves. They wanted to clean it but then put some sort of coating on it to make it look "old". I wasn't thrilled with that idea. After asking someone with a lot of experience in movie production, I reached the conclusion that my initial reaction of not thinking it was a good idea to rent it to them was the correct one. He told me that if I did rent it, to make sure that the contract was solid, and to make sure that the item was returned and payment received very quickly. Part of "Hollywood accounting" is that many movie production companies cease to exist almost immediately after postproduction is finished. If I had made it available at all, I would much rather have had screen credit, in the "Thanks to" list at the end, than the $500. I was told that getting screen credit was impossible. Obviously it isn't impossible in the general case, but apparently in this specific situation the leadperson didn't have enough pull and they didn't want the front panel badly enough to make it happen. If they had asked me for a 5150, I would have been far more willing to rent them one. While they're a little hard to find now, they're far more plentiful than KA10 front panels. I still haven't actually seen _Swordfish_. Maybe I'll rent it some day. Eric