Keyboards in movies/TV series!

[Muirium]

An XT with homing bumps?

And a dodgy Scroll Lock?

Someone's been fiddling with that!

Which I suppose may be the point, what with the supernatural title. Is there an invisible character typing on the keyboard?

[Grond]

It's supposed to be the same keyboard in the two shots but it's obviously not

[JBert]

Well, the left Alt key is certainly different. Got any YouTube video of that scene?

[andrewjoy]

Look at how the keys are places a well , there is no way they are sitting inside an XT they are all lob sided and bent out of shape

[Grond]

Trading Places (1983)




As for the "Ghost" scene, I can't find it on youtube. I can tell you that the close-up keyboard is shown when the ghost types on it, so it's most probably a prop built to make it look like a self-typing keyboard.
On the other hand, the keyboard on the larger shot is never shown while self-typing, so it should be genuite. Here's another screenshot from the same scene:



Also, another keyboard from "Ghost":

[Muirium]

The Trading Places beamspring! Going to have to watch that one again this Christmas. It's a very festive film…

[Halvar]

The "Trading Places" one could be Micro Switch Hall effect keyboard.

[Grond]

When you put a keyboard in your vintage Rolls Royce, you might as well put a good one!

[andrewjoy]

Ha, comparing car brands to keyboards. This is fun, Vauxhall/Opel =

[Grond]

It wasn't meant as a comparison, the keyboard is actually mounted in a Rolls Royce in the film.

[andrewjoy]

Ohhh, still a fun game !

[Ozric]

Mystery Science Theater 3000

[maxmalkav]

Th Smashing Pumpkins "Rocket" video has a nice collection of vintage boards (100% winkeyless regarding the video is from 1993

some highlights:
00:04 some very old stuff on the wall, another that I cannot distinguish very well
00:06 some querty action
00:08 someone, the top row of the left keyboard? A nice old one to the right side
01:25 good opportunity to determine the switch type of the right keyboard above
02:23 some nice spheric keys on that board carried by bike
02:54 well, some kind of calculator
03:32 that command keys at the left side ..

Not too bad for a 4 minutes video (and I love the song)

[Muirium]

Edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th-AqMvvBzE

Bad. Do it like this.

[youtube]Th-AqMvvBzE[/youtube]

[maxmalkav]

Thanks Muirium, I had no clue how to embedded it and I was too lazy to do further research on the topic :-S

[chzel]

Pro tip: if you hover the mouse over the button in the full editor a tooltip with the usage appears.

[mr_a500]

RCA Video Data Terminal in Andromeda Strain.jpg

RCA Video Data Terminal (usually linked to RCA Spectra 70 mainframes) in The Andromeda Strain (1971). HaaTa has one of these keyboards. The terminal on the right has a light pen and the switches on that are clicky, but they seem painfully tedious to use. (watch the movie)

I really must make some pole stands like that for my terminals.

[mr_a500]

Yes, I was right. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) terminal is a Burroughs. It's bloody obvious when you see it in high resolution. Look at all the Burroughs logos. Why the hell did I bother trying to decipher low-res blurry small images when I could just get it in 1080p??

Crown Burroughs sharp.jpg

At least I have the satisfaction of knowing I was right all along. (...except not having the resolution to know that some keys are blue, green & red)

[mr_a500]

The Demon Seed terminal is obviously a mock-up, but this thing is about as close to it you'll ever get:

Strange UNIVAC terminals.jpg

[vivalarevolución]

Not a movie or TV show, but anybody know what keyboard Jesus is using here?

1426533_10153899017958566_3434802167878334418_n.jpg (25.12 KiB) Viewed 18814 times

[Muirium]

Something mocked up less than life size, if his plasticky hands are anything to go by.

[jeff]

From Innerspace (1987)



Keyset colors remind me something

[bhtooefr]

Rise of the Centaur has a couple sightings that I've noticed.

Glenn Henry (one of the founders, and the president of Centaur Technology) is shown as having a beige Unicomp Customizer or Classic 101 (he is an IBM Fellow...):

Glenn Henry's Customizer/Classic 101

vlcsnap-2016-02-03-21h13m12s105.jpg (746.1 KiB) Viewed 18709 times

And Suresh Hariharan's (another Centaur engineer) very aggressively tented) Model M15:

Suresh Hariharan and his Model M15

vlcsnap-2016-02-03-21h20m31s638.jpg (521.42 KiB) Viewed 18709 times

(It's a thinly veiled VIA CPU ad, but it's quite interesting to watch for many reasons.)

[elecplus]

An entire room full of 1984-1986 computers and keyboards in the TV show Catching Killers, Computer Forensics, season 2, episode 2. Free on Amazon peime, but it gets taken down in 11 days. A lot of input from Cliff Stoll.

[lunas]

hey,

I have a son and recently we watched Tron and Terminator 2 together (I'm feeding him some of the classical science fiction films in small doses..).

he side of the keyboard looks like a Northgate, but then the keycaps look sort of funny (which is why I thought of HP).

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 !

tron02kb.jpg (102.51 KiB) Viewed 18673 times

What could those be ??

ciao,

J.

Responding to an old post, but since reading it I've been on a mission to find this Tron keyboard from the laser bay. I originally though it was a DEC VT/78 (wikipedia), but I just saw a post on reddit /r/mk that looks like a match, from Gene Roddenberry no less.

IMG_2650-Computer-and-floppies-640x420.jpg (64.19 KiB) Viewed 18673 times

Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyb ... om_pc_z80/

[Tuntematon]

Mulder.png (604.03 KiB) Viewed 18577 times

Mulder typing a report on his Focus. (The X-Files, S3E12)

[Muirium]

Case Report: X-File 7911
Secret: Need to know only

Once again Agent Sculley appears unimpressed with the EVIDENCE discovered. She claims the METICULOUS array of trash around the victim's corpse was a chance alignment and of zero interest. Unlikely. The patterns in the attached photos of the crime scene bear CLEAR SIMILARITIES with the Nazca Lines of the Mayan APOCALYPSE. Sculley insists that "straight lines are not noteworthy". Her counter argument is growing weaker by the day. I think she is almost at the point of accepting that the murder was at the point of ALIEN CONTACT, with the same craft that IMPREGNATED the pyramid builders of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

I like it when we fight. She's kinda hot when she's angry.

…Backspace Backspace Backspace Backspace…

[Nuum]

Wow, this thread has been left alone for too long! Not exactly a movie, but I found this short snipet of some kind of portable coumputer by British Telecom with what seem to be Cherry M8 switches.

(at 10:49)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3NVQSH ... u.be&t=649

[Findecanor]

Several people in the comments say that it is a Prestel terminal, a British counterpart to the French Minitel.
The museum has a page about this machine: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/ ... 0Terminal/

[mr_a500]

Responding to an old post, but since reading it I've been on a mission to find this Tron keyboard from the laser bay. I originally though it was a DEC VT/78 (wikipedia), but I just saw a post on reddit /r/mk that looks like a match, from Gene Roddenberry no less.



Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyb ... om_pc_z80/

Excellent. Thanks for that. That clears up all the keyboards in TRON.