Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail • Hacker News Board

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#31

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 4:53 AM UTC

albert_e wrote: post #27

Is there a behind the scenes detail on Jurassic Park branding and logo? I love how well they planned it ahead and wove that into every thing we see across the park.

[deleted]

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#32

Post by albert_e » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 4:54 AM UTC

albert_e wrote: post #27

Is there a behind the scenes detail on Jurassic Park branding and logo? I love how well they planned it ahead and wove that into every thing we see across the park.

Let me google that for myself :)

https://grapheine.com/en/magazine/the-story-of-the-big-bad-j...

https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Jurassic_Park_logo

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#33

Post by sswn » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 4:55 AM UTC

This is why I love the internet! Thank you to the author for taking the time!

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#34

Post by haunter » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 5:00 AM UTC

Another good Jurassic Park content is this filming locations video. Almost everything can still be visited today https://youtu.be/34r8Ypxzkk4

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#35

Post by ButlerianJihad » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 5:03 AM UTC

KasianFranks wrote: post #8

Guess my OS?

plan9, obviously, philistine!

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#36

Post by gdubs » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 5:06 AM UTC

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

Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

#37

Post by mrpippy » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 5:10 AM UTC

fabiensanglard wrote: post #26

mrpippy wrote: post #7

Also, SGI keyboards never used ADB. Indigo-era SGIs used a mini-DIN keyboard/mouse, but it was proprietary. They were PS/2 starting with the Indigo2 and Indy.

Thank you, I double checked in the SGI hardware developer handbook and it looks like you were correct. Do you know if I can find a better source than that to confirm?

These links show the pinout:

https://hardware.majix.org/computers/sgi/keyboards.shtml https://hardware.majix.org/computers/sgi.pi/keyboard.shtml

And the keyboard(7) man page actually has full details on the protocol (Indigo uses the mini DIN-6): https://github.com/jtsiomb/sgikbd/blob/master/doc/sgi_man7_k...