War Games

From: Anthony Clifton <wirehead_at_retrocomputing.com>
Date: Tue Sep 23 18:42:50 1997

> > I think they wanted the computer to look more hackeresque. In the
> > screenplay, David built his computer from junk, cobbling it together over
> > time, kinda hard to cobble an Apple case and motherboard over time.
>
> Then how come everything he had was IMSAI brand name (CPU, modem, disk
> drives, keyboard)? If they wanted it to seem like he cobbled it together
> they should have had him with an IMSAI CPU, a CompuPro dual 8" disk drive
> unit, a VT-100 terminal, some funky Racal-Vadic modem, etc.
>
True. Most likely it's just because the IMSAI is so photogenic from the
standpoint of looking like a hacker machine.
 
> BTW, if you look closely you'll see that the top is off of the IMSAI and
> it has ribbon cables coming out of it. Not very apparent though.

True. And if you look the 'behind the desk' scenes, where you're looking
at the back of the monitor like when he and Jennifer are coming in the
room you'll see a logic probe and some tools sitting on the desk next to
the keyboard.

I think the intention was hackeresqueness but considering that even in
'83 after the peak of the IMSAI and Altair and so on, not many people
could afford a system like that. But keep in mind movie people aren't
used to thinking on the level of REAL people. =-)

It's like Whiz Kids (anyone remember that show featuring the same kid who
played Albert on Little House on the Prairie with computers and hackers?)
on CBS in maybe 84 or 85. In the opening to the show they pan around
this hacker kids bedroom and he's got EASILY what 20-30-40000 dollars
worth of hardware? Robot arms...color displays...S100 boxes, disk drives
all over the place, voice synthesizers, light pens...all high end gear.
It just looked goofy! The story line though was that his father had
divorced his mom and the father felt bad so he bought all the equipment
for the kid to rewin his favor. The father had some high-end job
someplace such that he could afford it.

Speaking of which, I would LOVE to have copies of episodes of Whiz Kids.
I have virtually every hacker/computer movie ever made, except a few. In
addition, I'd like to have episodes of Riptide on tape, which also
featured a hacker as a main character along with a goofy robot. No
Knight Rider thank you...intelligent cars just don't trip my trigger.

Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
Received on Tue Sep 23 1997 - 18:42:50 BST