From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

rCLThis is a Unix system! I know this!rCY

Every piece of computer hardware in the original rCLJurassic ParkrCY
hardware was real -- loaned by the vendors for use in the film. In the
blog post linked to in this report, Google engineer Fabien Sanglard
goes through it all -- including of course the SGI machines that were
the subject of the famous line above.

<https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/engineer-identifies-and-explains-every-90s-computer-seen-in-jurassic-park/>

(RIP Sam Neill)
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

This was awesome. Are there more of these?


Lawrence D?Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

?This is a Unix system! I know this!?

Every piece of computer hardware in the original ?Jurassic Park?
hardware was real -- loaned by the vendors for use in the film. In the
blog post linked to in this report, Google engineer Fabien Sanglard
goes through it all -- including of course the SGI machines that were
the subject of the famous line above.

<https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/engineer-identifies-and-explains-every-90s-computer-seen-in-jurassic-park/>

(RIP Sam Neill)

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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

2026-07-16, Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> schrieb:

This was awesome. Are there more of these?

You mean like "Starring the Computer"?
https://www.starringthecomputer.com/

[Schnipp]
--
Jan v/d Broek balglaas@dds.nl

"We're through being cool."
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

Jan van den Broek <balglaas@dds.nl> wrote:

2026-07-16, Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> schrieb:

This was awesome. Are there more of these?

You mean like "Starring the Computer"?
https://www.starringthecomputer.com/

[Schnipp]

Even better. Thanks. :)
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"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." --Romans 1:16
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

On Fri, 17 Jul 2026 06:54:17 -0000 (UTC), Jan van den Broek wrote:

https://www.starringthecomputer.com/

Which one has the longest list of entries <https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computers.html>? I think itrCOs a
toss-up between the Commodore 64 <https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=66> and the IBM
AN/FSQ-7 <https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=73>.

I donrCOt think any of the latter featured as actual working units. They
were huge mainframe computers, built for the US Air Force SAGE system
to guard against attack by Soviet nuclear bombers. Billions were spent
to build and run the system for about a decade, before the whole thing
was decommissioned as it became clear that the main threat would
henceforth come from ICBMs. It was never used in anger, of course;
some felt that it would never have worked anyway.

Pieces kept popping up in movies and TV for many years after the
system was dismantled, since buying and adapting those second-hand
parts was usually cheaper than building your own props from scratch.
And they looked pretty impressive, too.
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

IBM >AN/FSQ-7 <https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=73>.

I don't think any of the latter featured as actual working units. They
were huge mainframe computers, built for the US Air Force SAGE system
to guard against attack by Soviet nuclear bombers. Billions were spent
to build and run the system for about a decade, before the whole thing
was decommissioned as it became clear that the main threat would
henceforth come from ICBMs. It was never used in anger, of course;
some felt that it would never have worked anyway.

There was the minor problem pointed out by Les Ernest: it could
not deal with radar jamming, so TPTB just pretended it didn't
exist. AND as it turns out, the USSR long-range bomber fleet
was ~5-6 total aircraft.

Pieces kept popping up in movies and TV for many years after the
system was dismantled, since buying and adapting those second-hand
parts was usually cheaper than building your own props from scratch.
And they looked pretty impressive, too.

A wall of blinking lamps was purchased by a Hollywood prop shop
and used by Irwin Allen in Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of
the Sea, etc. and many of his other schlocky series of the
era.
--
A host is a host from coast to coast...............wb8foz@panix.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> writes:

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

IBM >AN/FSQ-7 <https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=73>.

I don't think any of the latter featured as actual working units. They
were huge mainframe computers, built for the US Air Force SAGE system
to guard against attack by Soviet nuclear bombers. Billions were spent
to build and run the system for about a decade, before the whole thing
was decommissioned as it became clear that the main threat would
henceforth come from ICBMs. It was never used in anger, of course;
some felt that it would never have worked anyway.

There was the minor problem pointed out by Les Ernest: it could
not deal with radar jamming, so TPTB just pretended it didn't
exist. AND as it turns out, the USSR long-range bomber fleet
was ~5-6 total aircraft.

Pieces kept popping up in movies and TV for many years after the
system was dismantled, since buying and adapting those second-hand
parts was usually cheaper than building your own props from scratch.
And they looked pretty impressive, too.

A wall of blinking lamps was purchased by a Hollywood prop shop
and used by Irwin Allen in Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of
the Sea, etc. and many of his other schlocky series of the
era.

That seemed to be the popular impression of computers for many
people. Lots and lots of blinking lights.

Hmmm.... worked for the Wizard of Oz too. :-)


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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> writes:

David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> writes:

A wall of blinking lamps was purchased by a Hollywood prop shop
and used by Irwin Allen in Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of
the Sea, etc. and many of his other schlocky series of the
era.

That seemed to be the popular impression of computers for many
people. Lots and lots of blinking lights.

Prior to 1980, most computers had lots and lots of blinking lights.

Worked with a burroughs B4800 (the engineering prototype) that
had smoked glass doors on the processor cabinets to expose
the status lights on the edge of the processor cards. 72"
tall by 96" wide with thousands of status LEDs. Impressive
to watch. It also had an LED per I/O channel that showed
channel activity[*] (something still done today on NIC
expansion cards and most modern HDD controllers have pins for
an activity LED).


[*] A rather useful debug tool.
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

On Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:00:24 -0400, Bud Frede wrote:

That seemed to be the popular impression of computers for many
people. Lots and lots of blinking lights.

DonrCOt forget lots of spinning reel-tape drives!

This continued right into the 1980s, about a decade or so after most
backing store (on big computers) had already moved from tapes to
disks, with tapes used primarily for backup.
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers


Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> posted:

On Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:00:24 -0400, Bud Frede wrote:

That seemed to be the popular impression of computers for many
people. Lots and lots of blinking lights.

DonrCOt forget lots of spinning reel-tape drives!

This continued right into the 1980s, about a decade or so after most
backing store (on big computers) had already moved from tapes to
disks, with tapes used primarily for backup.

"I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands
of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking, beeping
and flashing - they're flashing and they're beeping. I can't \
stand it anymore! They're blinking and beeping and flashing!
Why doesn't somebody pull the plug?"


I never had a true blinkenlight machine to take care of, but that's okay;
the flickering diodes on the modern routers and rack-servers were good enough for me. I even put up a blinkenlight warning sign... until the C-levels made
me take it down after a few months for some reason that was never entirely clear to me (I suspect a terminal lack of humor).

"Achtung! Alles Lookenspeepers!
Das computermaschine ist nicht f|+r gefingerpoken und
mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen
und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht f|+r gewerken bei
das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das
cottenpickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen
das blinkenlichten."


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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

Bud Frede wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> writes:

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

IBM >AN/FSQ-7 <https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=73>.

<snip>

A wall of blinking lamps was purchased by a Hollywood prop shop
and used by Irwin Allen in Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of
the Sea, etc. and many of his other schlocky series of the
era.

That seemed to be the popular impression of computers for many
people. Lots and lots of blinking lights.

That's partly because they used to have a lot of lights, iirc.

Hmmm.... worked for the Wizard of Oz too. :-)

If you have a lot of USB MIDI gear running, you will see lights on
the hub(s), the audio codec box, USB noise filter, the MIDI grid
controller, the network switch, and even some brands of USB
speakers.
--
Less is more or less more
-- Y_Plentyn on #LinuxGER
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I never had a true blinkenlight machine to take care of, but that's
okay; the flickering diodes on the modern routers and rack-servers were good enough for me.

The closest I ever came was a dial-up WAN with 32 modems in a rack. It
managed a store retail point-of-sale system, and you could tell when
the stores closed by when the modems would light up. They'd all be
blinking away for about 10-15 minutes every hour, then settle down to
nothing. It became a nice way of keeping time when working in the
server room.

kurt weiske | kweiske at realitycheckbbs dot org
| http://realitycheckbbs.org
| 1:218/700@fidonet




... The tape is now the music
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

On 2026-08-07, SpallsHurgenson <user14325@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

I never had a true blinkenlight machine to take care of, but that's okay; the flickering diodes on the modern routers and rack-servers were good enough
for me. I even put up a blinkenlight warning sign... until the C-levels made me take it down after a few months for some reason that was never entirely clear to me (I suspect a terminal lack of humor).

"Achtung! Alles Lookenspeepers!
Das computermaschine ist nicht f|+r gefingerpoken und
mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen
und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht f|+r gewerken bei
das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das
cottenpickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen
das blinkenlichten."

I had access to a number of rooms full of computers with
lots of blinkenlichten. The power supply section in these
machines had a blank plate that was just begging for a notice
of some sort, so I made up a sign for each one and installed
them in a professional-looking manner in enough places to
maybe make people think they were official. They read:

DANGER!
50,000 OHMS
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | In this world there are
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | two kinds of people:
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | 1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \ if you read it the right way. | from incomplete data.
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

On Fri, 07 Aug 2026 19:16:25 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I had access to a number of rooms full of computers with lots of blinkenlichten. The power supply section in these machines had a
blank plate that was just begging for a notice of some sort, so I
made up a sign for each one and installed them in a
professional-looking manner in enough places to maybe make people
think they were official. They read:

DANGER!
50,000 OHMS

ThatrCOs about the resistance of the human body?

Put that on a T-shirt, and it would make sense. ;)
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From Newsgroup: alt.folklore.computers

On Fri, 07 Aug 2026 19:16:25 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-08-07, SpallsHurgenson <user14325@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

I never had a true blinkenlight machine to take care of, but that's okay; >> the flickering diodes on the modern routers and rack-servers were good enough
for me. I even put up a blinkenlight warning sign... until the C-levels made >> me take it down after a few months for some reason that was never entirely >> clear to me (I suspect a terminal lack of humor).

"Achtung! Alles Lookenspeepers!
Das computermaschine ist nicht f|+r gefingerpoken und
mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen
und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht f|+r gewerken bei
das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das
cottenpickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen
das blinkenlichten."

I had access to a number of rooms full of computers with
lots of blinkenlichten. The power supply section in these
machines had a blank plate that was just begging for a notice
of some sort, so I made up a sign for each one and installed
them in a professional-looking manner in enough places to
maybe make people think they were official. They read:

DANGER!
50,000 OHMS

Test stickers with date:

https://pr0mart.com/Nach-Kategorien/

German, mostly.

"do not connect device to internet no matter how much it asks"
"Temporary solution since MM YY"
"so that's how you do it"

etc.

Thomas Prufer
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