22 Sep
1997
22 Sep
'97
11:37 p.m.
Recently Sam remarked:
A neat thing: at the end of the movie during the
credits they get to
thanking those who provided technical assistance. The first company
listed is none other than "CompuPro Division, Godbout Electronics". >Very
cool! Others listed were Televideo, Fischer-Freitas (why does that >sound
It may have been Fisher (I'll check at lunch today, but they were ex
IMSAI employees who set up in business after IMSAI's demise supporting
the old machines. Just read "Fire in the Valley" ;-)
familiar and did I get the Fischer part right?),
Memorex, Qume, and
Hans
23 Sep
23 Sep
6:06 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Hans Pufal wrote:
One thing I forgot to mention that is also interesting is that there was
absolutely no mention of IMSAI in the credits! Not that I saw at least.
Perhaps it was the Fisher-Freitas guys who snuck the IMSAI into the movie?
What's neat is that this movie came out in 1983, probably filmed in 1982
or so. This is still nearly 3 years after the heyday of the IMSAI.
Well, maybe not, but when you think of it in terms of the fact that the
Apple was pretty much THE home computer, and Atari and Commodore were
also a presence, its interesting they chose to use an IMSAI. Ithink it
was very cool that they chose to use an IMSAI. Maybe its because they
were trying to convey that David had some big, powerful computer.
They would have done well using an Apple as they could've had all the
necessary peripherals to pull it off (voice synth, etc) and everyone could
relate to it. An Atari or Commodore setup would not have looked nearly as
impressive, and besides, only weenies hacked from Ataris or Commodores :)
Maybe they chose an IMSAI because not many people in the general public
had one at that point (most people had Apples or TRS-80s or what-not) and
they wanted to make David's exploits more plausible by the fact that he
had this big, powerful looking computer with lights and switches on it?
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
A neat thing:
at the end of the movie during the credits they get to
thanking those who provided technical assistance. The first company
listed is none other than "CompuPro Division, Godbout Electronics". >Very
cool! Others listed were Televideo, Fischer-Freitas (why does that >sound
It may have been Fisher (I'll check at lunch today, but they were ex
IMSAI employees who set up in business after IMSAI's demise supporting
the old machines. Just read "Fire in the Valley" ;-) 
6:37 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Sam Ismail wrote:
What's neat is that this movie came out in 1983,
probably filmed in 1982
or so. This is still nearly 3 years after the heyday of the IMSAI.
Well, maybe not, but when you think of it in terms of the fact that the
Apple was pretty much THE home computer, and Atari and Commodore were
also a presence, its interesting they chose to use an IMSAI. Ithink it
was very cool that they chose to use an IMSAI. Maybe its because they
were trying to convey that David had some big, powerful computer.
Did it strike anybody as odd that while David was seen to turn the IMSAI
CPU on at various times, he never once turned on the disk drives? B^}
-jim
---
jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
8:17 a.m.
Sam wrote:
Maybe they chose an IMSAI because not many people in the general public
had one at that point (most people had Apples or TRS-80s or what-not) and
they wanted to make David's exploits more plausible by the fact that he
had this big, powerful looking computer with lights and switches on it?
I guess for similar reasons they used a Memotech MTX512 as the computer
that generated the woman in the film Weird Science. I don't think that
the Memotech range ever made it to the US so it would have appeared as
some sort of powerfull computer - certainly the graphics it was shown
to display were well beyond its capabilities.
--
Kevan
Old Computer Collector: http://staff.motiv.co.uk/~kevan/
10:24 a.m.
One thing I forgot to mention that is also interesting
is that there was
absolutely no mention of IMSAI in the credits! Not that I saw at least.
What's neat is that this movie came out in 1983, probably filmed in 1982
was very cool that they chose to use an IMSAI. Maybe its because they
were trying to convey that David had some big, powerful computer.
I think they wanted the computer to look more hackeresque. In the
screenplay, David built his computer from junk, cobbling it together over
time, kinda hard to cobble an Apple case and motherboard over time.
I don't think they wanted it to look big and powerful as much as complex
and hackeresque.
Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
1:58 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Anthony Clifton wrote:
I think they wanted the computer to look more
hackeresque. In the
screenplay, David built his computer from junk, cobbling it together over
time, kinda hard to cobble an Apple case and motherboard over time.
Then how come everything he had was IMSAI brand name (CPU, modem, disk
drives, keyboard)? If they wanted it to seem like he cobbled it together
they should have had him with an IMSAI CPU, a CompuPro dual 8" disk drive
unit, a VT-100 terminal, some funky Racal-Vadic modem, etc.
BTW, if you look closely you'll see that the top is off of the IMSAI and
it has ribbon cables coming out of it. Not very apparent though.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
2:42 p.m.
I think they
wanted the computer to look more hackeresque. In the
screenplay, David built his computer from junk, cobbling it together over
time, kinda hard to cobble an Apple case and motherboard over time.
Then how come everything he had was IMSAI brand name (CPU, modem, disk
drives, keyboard)? If they wanted it to seem like he cobbled it together
they should have had him with an IMSAI CPU, a CompuPro dual 8" disk drive
unit, a VT-100 terminal, some funky Racal-Vadic modem, etc.
BTW, if you look closely you'll see that the top
is off of the IMSAI and
it has ribbon cables coming out of it. Not very apparent though.
True. And if you look the 'behind the desk' scenes, where you're looking
at the back of the monitor like when he and Jennifer are coming in the
room you'll see a logic probe and some tools sitting on the desk next to
the keyboard.
I think the intention was hackeresqueness but considering that even in
'83 after the peak of the IMSAI and Altair and so on, not many people
could afford a system like that. But keep in mind movie people aren't
used to thinking on the level of REAL people. =-)
It's like Whiz Kids (anyone remember that show featuring the same kid who
played Albert on Little House on the Prairie with computers and hackers?)
on CBS in maybe 84 or 85. In the opening to the show they pan around
this hacker kids bedroom and he's got EASILY what 20-30-40000 dollars
worth of hardware? Robot arms...color displays...S100 boxes, disk drives
all over the place, voice synthesizers, light pens...all high end gear.
It just looked goofy! The story line though was that his father had
divorced his mom and the father felt bad so he bought all the equipment
for the kid to rewin his favor. The father had some high-end job
someplace such that he could afford it.
Speaking of which, I would LOVE to have copies of episodes of Whiz Kids.
I have virtually every hacker/computer movie ever made, except a few. In
addition, I'd like to have episodes of Riptide on tape, which also
featured a hacker as a main character along with a goofy robot. No
Knight Rider thank you...intelligent cars just don't trip my trigger.
Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
8:28 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Anthony Clifton wrote:
It's like Whiz Kids (anyone remember that show
featuring the same kid who
played Albert on Little House on the Prairie with computers and hackers?)
on CBS in maybe 84 or 85. In the opening to the show they pan around
Yeah, I wish they would show re-runs of that on cable or something. It
would be fun to see all the old hardware they used. I only saw a few
episodes of that show. The only scene I remember is Albert (of course
not his character name in the Whiz Kids show) using his computer to drive
a robot arm to position a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in front of
his mouth so he could take a bite out of it. Very nerdy!
Speaking of which, I would LOVE to have copies of
episodes of Whiz Kids.
I have virtually every hacker/computer movie ever made, except a few. In
addition, I'd like to have episodes of Riptide on tape, which also
featured a hacker as a main character along with a goofy robot. No
Knight Rider thank you...intelligent cars just don't trip my trigger.
They used displays from Atari 2600 driving games in that stupid KITT car,
and sound effects from the 2600 version of PacMan. I would love to have
the episodes of Whiz Kids on tape too. I was trying to find a _War
Games_ for sale at the video store yesterday but they didn't have one.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
24 Sep
24 Sep
7:56 a.m.
not his character name in the Whiz Kids show) using
his computer to drive
a robot arm to position a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in front of
his mouth so he could take a bite out of it. Very nerdy!
Well, one of the last episodes had him using his computer to decipher
Egyptian hieroglyphics, which then caused him to become possessed by an
evil Pharoah etc. You can always tell when a series is about to die
because they'll use the paranormal to try to boost ratings...unless it's
a special Halloween episode.
the episodes of Whiz Kids on tape too. I was trying
to find a _War
Games_ for sale at the video store yesterday but they didn't have one.
For years I had a copy I taped off HBO until last Christmas when my wife,
after looking for 3 years, found a new copy of Wargames. Alot of times
you can special order it easily.
Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
23 Sep
23 Sep
4:22 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Sam Ismail once stated:
On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Anthony Clifton wrote:
The way I heard it (rats, I can't remember the source, but it is one of
those books about the history of microcomputers like _Hackers_ (not that
one) or _Fire in the Valley_ (not that one either)) was that IMSAI gave the
production company the computers for free publicity. Of course, when the
movie came out, IMSAI was pretty much Chapter 11 anyway (US slang for "out
of business") ...
-spc (Surprised that _Wiz Kids_ haven't made a come back, with the
Internet hype and all ... 8-/
I think they wanted the computer to look more
hackeresque. In the
screenplay, David built his computer from junk, cobbling it together over
time, kinda hard to cobble an Apple case and motherboard over time.
Then how come everything he had was IMSAI brand name (CPU, modem, disk
drives, keyboard)? If they wanted it to seem like he cobbled it together
they should have had him with an IMSAI CPU, a CompuPro dual 8" disk drive
unit, a VT-100 terminal, some funky Racal-Vadic modem, etc.
9832
days inactive
9833
days old
11 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
dastar＠crl.com -
hans1＠filan00.grenoble.hp.com -
jimw＠agora.rdrop.com -
kevan＠heydon.org -
mfavata＠geocities.com -
scott＠saskatoon.com -
spc＠armigeron.com -
wirehead＠retrocomputing.com