On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, Max Eskin wrote:
> I just saw Wargames; what an excellent movie! I encourage everyone who
> hasn't seen it already to see it.
>
> I ask this question when seeing any technology-based movie;
> how much of the technology is actually possible? Who was Professor
> Falken in the movie based upon? Can a JOSHUA be built?
>
> Lastly, was there any meaning to the launch code CPE1704?
Max, we had this very discussion a couple months ago. You could
probably go back to the archives and read up on it. But it was a fun
topic and wouldn't mind doing it all over again.
To answer your first question, the technology the movie portrayed was all
feasible in real life, save for the programming of Joshua. In my opinion,
the plot was plausible (at least more so than _Sneakers_, and especially
_Hackers_ to name a couple flicks in the genre) but still somewhat
far-fetched. Everything David did in the movie was all pretty real, ie.
war-dialing through a stolen calling card, getting dialtone from the
payphone by grounding the microphone (still possible today but in a
different way...payphone trunks are now dialtone first whereas in the
WarGames era they required a coin to be dropped before you got dialtone).
I also wondered if there was significance to the launch code.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Sun Mar 22 1998 - 16:28:20 GMT