Keyboards in movies/TV series!

[Grond]

It seemed to me something was wrong with the keyboard, but I didn't notice it was a good old G80!

[Grond]

Tequila Sunrise (1988).

[Grond]

There's not a proper keyboad in "2001: a Space Odyssey" – HAL's voice controls seem to work pretty well. Yet there are some cool control panels. I think legends are Futura mostly.

[mr_a500]

What I'm most impressed with are all the flat screens. Most science fiction movies - even 25 years later - used CRTs for displays.

[Grond]

Oh yes, there's even some sort of IBM "tablets", that's very impressing!



See, the first time I saw the film as a kid I didn't even notice it because there was no such thing as tablets in reality yet!

[mr_a500]

I knew there were tablets there, but the resolution wasn't high enough to see the IBM logo. Fascinating.

If I didn't hate Blu-Ray so much (damn user-hostile crapware!), I'd get it for sure. When are they ever going to release movies on micro cards that plug into the TV and play instantly??

[Daniel Beardsmore]

When are they ever going to release movies on micro cards that plug into the TV and play instantly??

You mean, like using the SD card form factor, but using a form of ROM storage? I thought the same about CDs — I don't know if the economies of scale would ever work out though.

[mr_a500]

I think movies on protected SD (or something similar) could be cheaper than video tapes were. If the movie companies weren't so damn greedy, wanting the cheapest possible medium for maximum profit, maybe we'd have something like that by now. Optical disc will probably always be cheaper though.

I want to plug in a small card have the movie play instantly - no slow bootup, no FBI warning shit, no endless previews and commercials you can't skip. I want the ability to smoothly scrub to any scene in the movie, with fine control. I never ever want my media player to tell me that some function is disabled or "not allowed". (I'm the damn boss here, not my media player!)

I know companies are moving towards downloads/streaming video, but I'd rather have it on physical media that I can buy anonymously in a store. I don't want companies knowing which movies I downloaded and when I watch them.

[Grond]

I believe phisical formats are dead. Probably media players will get faster thanks to solid state drive and someday you may get instant playback with them. As for now, the thing that sound the most like what you want (speed, privacy, freedom from ads and limitations, precision) is torrent + a pc/mac hooked to a tv. I don't think any legal alternative offers the same at the moment.

[Muirium]

Correct. The guys who put all the crap on Blurays very much on purpose are the guys who control the game here. They own the content. They don't give a flying fuck what you think, A500. I mean, have you seen the movies they make these days?

So yes, I rip them off with the occasional torrent, too. Not often, not as compulsively as my 20 year old self once collected mp3s, but when it's clear my only legal options are eat shit or go fuck myself. Love these guys!

Downloads aren't nearly as obnoxious as disc. Apple's pretty good at giving rights holders the finger when they want to spy on you. Really think Apple's giving individual user data to anyone else? Google would. Amazon might, if there's enough cash in it. But Apple is the kind of bastard that I like. Our interests are aligned. Apple likes to own the whole experience, and they're so rich they're immune to bribes on the scale the movie industry could afford. Movie distributors will get as much data as app makers: here's a country, here's your number sold there.

[Grond]

Another limitation in buying movies legally is language. In Italy 99% of movies are dubbed, and since it's a costly operation, there's a whole lot of films that never get to be imported here. So if you wanted to buy them legally you'd have to order them from abroad. The venerable Criterion Collection, which offers restored old films, is unavailable here too. I like to see films in their original language, and most of DVDs and Blu Ray offer that option, but... not always, beacuse until the 80s it was very common for distributors to edit the films in italian versions! That means italian version may be shorter, maybe a few minutes or a full hour shorter, and sometimes this is still the version you'll find on sale. Long story short: italian version does not always exist, and even when it does it may be crap, so often the only way to find original, unabridged, restored cuts is to torrent them.

[Muirium]

Don't get me started on shitty anime dubs! Community rated fansubs FTW!

[mr_a500]

but when it's clear my only legal options are eat shit or go fuck myself.

Those options aren't too good.

I like the old days better. Electronics companies didn't own media companies and new technology was released as quick as possible, no holding back for decades to saturate the market with the old shit first. There was no attempt to block users from doing what they wanted with their devices. Devices didn't spy on users and report back to headquarters. (...looking lovingly to my wood-grained 80's VCR as I type this...)

[Muirium]

You sold me on "wood grained".

[Hypersphere]

Military-grade dual monitor and iron-clad keyboard on the USS Nathan James in the TV series, "The Last Ship". Apologies for the poor-quality video capture, and the keyboard is in the shadows -- cannot ID the board.

LastShipComputer.png (205.47 KiB) Viewed 8572 times

[Grond]

The Wire (2002).




Orange is the New Black (2014)

[mr_a500]

Ah.. looks like a Heathkit H89 in the background:

[Hypersphere]

I've been taking a look at an AMC series that is available on Amazon Instant Video called "Halt and Catch Fire" about "the rise of the PC era during the early 1980s". It's sort of like a geeky "Mad Men" with more of a focus on real work on a tangible product rather than on just the marketing of the product. There are numerous scenes of people working on Zenith and other terminals. I caught a brief glimpse of someone typing on an IBM 122; not sure if it was an F122 or M122. If I can ferret out the relevant scenes and capture them, I will post the images.

[Grond]

The infamous Swan computer from "Lost". This is the machine Desmond used to "push the button".



More infos here: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/7697846

[Muirium]

Anyone know a good supercut of Lost? I liked his Star Trek movies, but I haven't the second lifetime to dedicate to catching up on Abrams back catalogue!

[Grond]

I wouldn't even recommend to watch Lost if you haven't back in the day, the ending was so disappointing for me!

[Muirium]

I'm guessing they stayed lost, then.

The weird thing is that all these shows (Lost, Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, etc., etc.) are doing just the thing I wished everyone would do in the 80s and 90s when I watched a lot more TV: big storylines, lengthy arcs following different characters, prolonged build up to the final payoff. But now that I'm not a kid in a pre-Internet, snowed in, Scottish childhood, I haven't the man years to throw at the small screen anymore, and quite like the idea of bite sized episodes you can watch in isolation…

[Grond]

I know what you mean, series are very time consuming, and they don't make good anthology series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents or The Twilight Zone anymore – not that I know of, at least. On the other hand there are great mini series that last in 10-12 episodes, like Fargo and True Detective.

[Grond]

Boyz n the Hood (1991).

[mr_a500]

And in Tron (1982) there are some keyboards too, I spotted two, but it is hard to find good shots of them.
I really like the top one, what a nice blocky blue box !

How about this?



There's a bit of lens distortion in the ad, making the terminal appear smaller - but otherwise it looks pretty close to me.

Hmmm... it looks like I was wrong. That Harris S-110 computer system must be the large boxes in the background, not the terminal. Either that, or they totally copied this TEC® Incorporated Data-Screeen™ 400 series terminal:

TEC2.jpg

(from 1974 brochure)

The fake-wood-panelled one looks pretty nice too. (...if you're into fake wood...)

[mr_a500]

Here's another page. Notice how they say "IBM-type keytops". This is 1974, so the "IBM-type" they are talking about must refer to Selectrics or very early beam springs .

TEC3.jpg

[Grond]

I'm really disappointed that it's fake wood! If it was real that wold be a seriously cool computer.

[Grond]

The Russia House (1990). Some nice keyboards here, but no close ups unfortunately.

[mr_a500]

I now know I have a serious problem. I can identify nearly everything in the above photographs. I see the Apple IIe, the ADM terminal (possibly Televideo clone), the Electrohome monitor, the microfiche viewer... I think I even recognise the reel to reel.

[mr_a500]

I'm really disappointed that it's fake wood! If it was real that wold be a seriously cool computer.

Fake wood still looks pretty nice:

TEC1.jpg

...certainly better than yellowed-beige plastic. Though I don't recommend you type on a wood-panelled terminal in a southern US desert near sundown...