Guess my OS?
“It’s a Unix system. … I know this” XD Back in the days when it was an MS-DOS world…
The 3D file browser was one of the demo programs that came pre-installed on SGI machines, at least in the late '90s.
Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
171–180 of 278 posts
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#172Hey Fabien! It doesn't look like the link for this article is on your main page. I love your posts and check the main page frequently each week; I totally missed it until I saw it here.
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#173Generally full marks on realism, but I have to ask: Is a combination of SGI and old school macs a sensible platform for running a park? I guess if the macs can get on an appropriate network then they could at least send control commands, but they feel like an odd fit compared to the UNIX™ boxes.
In the 90s, at SGI (at least in France) they had Macs as workstations for tasks that didn't require or weren't compatible with an expensive SGI computer (like running MS Office or sending faxes). They switched to SGI Indy and O2 (running SoftWindows95 to run MS Office) at some point around 95/96, but that was a pretty expensive option, and Softwindows95 was a dog unless you had a really fast R10000 O2.
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#174My 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"
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#175I 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 illusion - except the threats." At no point after stepping on this island is anyone not in danger.
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#176I 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 roo…
Spielberg masterfully turned the 238/292 into the visual/explanation of the egg. I don't remember if the book has the "why" so much as the "at what scale" of the reality. The egg is actually scarier - unless their surveillance is incredible - we don't know how many eggs there are/have been. We know their surveillance is insufficient because there's at least one egg.
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#177My 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 reactio…
That’s amazing! I live next to their former office. Do you know which theater they rented out?
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#178I used to have a script running that whenever somebody failed to SSH into my laptop, it would blurt out "I hate this hacker crap" [1]. I had mostly forgotten about it until I was at a conference and it starts going off - followed by a guy nobody knew quickly leaving.
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Canonically, John Hammond spared no expense. SGI and Apple computers didn't provide the most bang for the buck, or even the most bang, but they sure did use up the most bucks. Other than high prices, and the target market that goes with it, they couldn't have been more different. The SGI systems were 3D rendering beasts, with a significant portion of their hardware dedicated to the task, making them fast machines for…
Hammond spared no expense except when it came to Nedry, which was a critical mistake.
According to Nedry.
Re: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
#180It 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 t…
It’s so lame they changed the LEDs to meaning nothing.
I'd heard from my wife who worked at TMs that they did this so engineers would stop "wasting" time programming animations on those lights.