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A Short History of Computers In the Movies

Posted by Unknown on from the smalltalk-in-the-movies dept.

Esther Schindler writes "The big screen has always tried to keep step with technology usually unsuccessfully. Peter Salus looks at how the film industry has treated computing. For a long time, the 'product placement' of big iron was limited to a few brands, primarily Burroughs. For instance: 'Batman: The Movie and Fantastic Voyage (both 1966) revert to the archaic Burroughs B205, though Fantastic Voyage also shows an IBM AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central. At 250 tons for each installation (there were about two dozen) the AN/FSQ-7 was the largest computer ever built, with 60,000 vacuum tubes and a requirement of 3 megawatts of power to perform 75,000 ips for regional radar centers. The last IBM AN/FSQ-7, at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, was demolished in February 1984.' Fun reading, I think."

4 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. The Q-7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Am I the only one here who's programmed that beast? Assembly language; Fortran had just been invented. Might fit one into a current Walmart, might not. I recall during our training (LA) we heard of another computer in the city! Had to go talk to those guys across town.

    Still cranking out code, at 84.

    1. Re:The Q-7 by NetAlien · · Score: 5, Interesting

      At 18 in 1964, I was just a young guy who programmed the IBM 407 Accounting machine that was also installed with the AN/FSQ-7 in the Canadian underground NORAD headquarters in North Bay, Ontario. The program complexity on those machines was measured by how much the boards weighed. Lots of wires terminated with pins containing tiny metal balls (like hitch pins) to keep the pins from being pushed out when the board was inserted into the 407 to run whatever program its wiring instructed. Diodes were sometimes needed to prevent back-flow (that machine's source of bugs). Spent over 7 years in the "hole" with the huge Q-7. Nostalgia!

  2. Starring the Computer by LaughingRadish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's something nice: http://starringthecomputer.com/. Various sightings of various computers in movies along with ratings of importance, realism, and visibility.

  3. Misses The Italian Job! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everyone remembers the Minis, but the true geeks remember Benny Hill playing one of the cinema's first computer hackers.