Re: Digest Number 232

James Gibbon wrote:
"Another thing that looks 'wrong' to me is the way computers are often shown
writing a screenful of text very slowly, a character at a time like an old
teletype. The first Alien film has this feature, so does Star Trek TNG.
Even in the 1970s a computer was capable of displaying a screenful of text
in less than a second, over a terminal line. Hey ho..."

Interesting point. If you ever saw the movie PRINCE OF DARKNESS (a John
Carpenter classic with Alice Cooper in his Oscar-winning role as Street
Schizo) you'd see almost the opposite. Of course it would be nice not to
need Satan's powers to be able to read and take in all the information as it
scrolled down the screen.

To get back to UFO, I wonder how on or off target they were with their
computer depiction. Don't some companies still use the older equipment
today, so maybe SHADO didn't need the obsession with upgrades.

That's probably true james but a limited budget series such as this wouldn't
have run to roomful of actual computers particularly in 1969, what you can
see appear to be mostly oscilloscopes of various types
Simon


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Simon wrote:
> That's probably true james but a limited budget series such as this wouldn't
> have run to roomful of actual computers particularly in 1969, what you can
> see appear to be mostly oscilloscopes of various types
> Simon
>
I wasn't referring to UFO (about the slow writing of text onto a
screen) here - I was digressing a bit. You do see static computer
screens in UFO now and then, and of course the famous teletype from
the opening credits.

Bill wrote:
> To get back to UFO, I wonder how on or off target they were with their
> computer depiction. Don't some companies still use the older equipment
> today, so maybe SHADO didn't need the obsession with upgrades.

Fairly off-target I would say - remembering that SID is
essentially an orbiting computer - a lot of emphasis on
artificial intelligence there - since I get the impression that
it doesn't just repeat recorded phrases but is actually capable
of constructing sentences. Not sure on that point though.

Straker comments in one episode that "I've known a computer to make
a mistake" or something similar. They often refer to 'the computer'
suggesting a central, monolithic mainframe type scenario.

James

James Gibbon wrote:

> Straker comments in one episode that "I've known a computer to make
> a mistake" or something similar.

I should have typed " .. never known a computer to make a
mistake" - sorry for any confusion.

James