Re: Do the people I see in the movies use Unix?

From: Måns Rullgård (mru_at_inprovide.com)
Date: 05/20/05 

Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 16:31:14 +0200

phil_gg04@treefic.com writes:

>> I watch American movies or plays,and I notice that the people in the
>> play do not use Windows,so I wonder what operating system they are
>> using?
>
> Jurassic Park! (Google =>
> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tildeImages/Film/JPark/)
>
> In general though I think what you see are mockups done by graphic
> artisits.

In most movies, they use an operating system where all text is green
(except the bits in flashing red), and the computer emits a beeping
sound whenever anything on the screen changes. Whenever someone does
a database search of some kind, all the entries flash by on the screen
as they are checked. This is usually rather fast, so the sound
produced is a constant stream of beeps. The users of such systems
must have very strong nerves, or be great fans of techno music. The
databases mentioned also possess the property of always delivering the
required data just in time, i.e. half a moment before the villain does
whatever knowing the right information will immediately prevent him
from doing. How to stop an apocalypse by knowing the proper
information is left as exercise to the reader.

Movie computer systems are also all equipped with some kind of
low-level wireless communication devices that allows the hero (or
villain) to tap into the system by placing a suitable gadget nearby.

There are exceptions, of course. In one scene (I can't remember from
where), a computer screen was shown, supposedly displaying the code
for a virus of sorts. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a
snippet from a typical makefile generated with automake.

One of the more noteworthy exceptions is the movie Antitrust (2001),
where most of the computers shown are running the GNOME desktop under
Linux, without the usual animations and sound effects. 

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com

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