Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail(fabiensanglard.net)
936 points by vinhnx 57 days ago | 249 comments
tl;dr: A detailed teardown identifies every computer visible in Jurassic Park (1993), including Apple Powerbook 100s, Macintosh Quadra 700s, SGI Indigo and Crimson workstations, Thinking Machines CM-5 supercomputers (which replaced the book's Cray after Cray declined to loan hardware), and a pre-release Motorola Envoy PDA that Spielberg reportedly got via a chance meeting with frogdesign's founder. Apple and SGI loaned roughly $1.2M (about $4M today) in hardware, with real software like SGI's fsn file manager ("It's a Unix system!") and Earthwatch weather visualization powering the on-screen displays.
HN Discussion:
  • Adding supplementary details about the Envoy PDA origin story and source code shown on screen
  • Personal anecdotes from those connected to the production reinforce the article's accuracy
  • Technical elaboration on Thinking Machines CM-5 hardware details and dialogue references
  • Appreciation for the film's use of real hardware explains why the visuals aged well
  • Nostalgic personal reflections on how the movie's computer aesthetics influenced their own work