Heh. Based partly on my tongue-in-cheek five second review of Jurassic Park and Tam's latest post, I got to thinking about the state of technology as it pertains to movies/TV. Seems to me, you can pretty accurately place a movie or television show made in the past 30 years based solely on the type of computer being used:
- Early 1980s: Desktop, monochrome monitor
- Late 1980s: Desktop, color monitor
- Early 1990s: Desktop, color monitor, sound
- Late 1990s: Laptop
- Early 2000s: LCD monitor
- Late 2000s: Ultra-thin laptop
- 2010s: Tablet PCs
That is all.
13 comments:
Yea? Star Trek. Pffft! :P
OK, to be serious, the wife and I have been working our way through the entire Star Trek universe on Netflix. Somewhere around the 3-4th season of TNG I commented to her how my ebook reader and tablet now appear to be even better then what the ST writers imagined they might be in 300yrs. Oh, and Picard reads more dead tree books then I do.
Once you start getting into the 1970s and earlier the computers tended to be the same: lots of tape drives and blinky lights. Sometimes you can tell a newer (late 1970s) film because they're using a DECWriter terminal, while older ones use a Teletype.
Trek computers. Feh. That LCARS user interface looks like a badly designed vending machine.
Mopar,
That's something I've thought about, too. With the notable exception of faster-than-light travel and teleportation, most everything in the Star Trek universe has either been achieved or is darn close to it.
I've tried e-books. Read one on the plane on my iPad - the one you suggested, AAMOF, about the Canadian motorcycle trip (very enjoyable read BTW). I prefer dead tree - up yours Gaia!
Dave, I was trying to work the Trash-80 in somewhere... :)
Even the producers of ST:TNG commented that laptops then in production were thinner than the desktop units they'd designed for the Enterprise on that show.
Cell phones are good movie daters as well.
Jay: I don't know of any TRS-80s that actually appeared in movies. The TV shop where I worked in college had one. I got to upgrade it to a whole 16K of RAM. (With a soldering iron.)
As you get older, you may find the e-ink displays easier on the eyes than a color display like an iPad. My first gen Nook is like reading newsprint.
Rev. Paul: The Trek fans would retcon that by claiming the equipment on a Starfleet vessel was milspec, not consumer electronics.
Ponder the tech in the movies "Aliens" versus "Minority Report".
A couple of years ago, I watched the X-Files from Season 1 through Season 9. Every episode, in order. It was VERY interesting seeing the tech that Scully used as the show progressed. She started out without PCs. Then it was monochrome monitors with full text input (think the Green Glowing Letters) and fax machines. Then it was color screens, but still no mouse. Then it was laptops with teeny tiny screens barely big enough to see text on. Then they were full fledged color screen laptops, mice, printers, and email.
Oh, and none of the tech used by Scully or Moulder was every anything that wasn't in real use. I'm not counting the interactions with aliens.
Jay, Marko had this discussion a few weeks ago. Basically, a dedicated ereader is a totally different animal then your ipad or any other color device. The e-ink pearl display on a current(B&W version) Kindle, Nook, or Kobo is not only just like reading a deadtree book, the text is actually sharper then many cheap paperbacks. The display doesnt flicker like a typical tablet or monitor, and it's not backlit, so there is no eyestrain. You might even find it easier since you can change the font size to whatever is most comfortable. The display is kind of like an electronic etch-a-sketch in that it only uses power to change the page. Because of that they can go weeks, even months on a single charge. They are thinner and lighter then an average book, and you can load thousands of books on one. Next time you're in Best Buy check them out.
Good point Jay, as long as you limit it to the 'home' computers...
What Alan said. Remember the scene in Lethal Weapon 1 where they used the phone that looked like it was attached to a portable Jump Starter?
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