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What computer is this? "Hackers" movie screen shots

R

Rockin' Kat

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2005
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56
Location
Kent, WA
Hi,

I recently watched Hackers and was just wondering what kind of computer they had the Dade character using to hack the TV station near the start of the movie?

Obviously it isn't particularly realistic visually, but It's still one of my favorite movies... I prefer to think of it more as metaphor than any real attempt at being realistic.

hackers2.jpg


More screen shots.
 
atari2600a said:
It must be capable of 68K execution or something because I could have swarn I saw it running Mac OS. Also it's capable of rendering the internet in 3D.
Click to expand...

Seeing as we'll all probably be dead before hollywood ever manages to "get it right", I'm not really interested in discussing the lack of realism in the movie, only curious as to what computer they used as a prop.
 
I think atari2600a meant that since it was showing completely unrealistic things, it could very well be a prop specially built for the film :)
 
It's one of my favorite movies too and I actually do that sort of work. It was more so the personas were dead on and cracked me up.

My friend and I used to think it was a Compaq Portable III but yeah that keyboard is odd. I'll have to check it out sometime, do you happen to have any shots of it during the day? I thought there were some regular shots when they first move into the apartment.

- John
 
IIRC, when he snuck a peek at that girl's laptop, it was a real Mac (which of course, impressed him very much). (Or am I remembering a different movie?) The screen shot is prob'ly fake tho. I also don't see (or recall) him using a mouse or other pointing device. He did all that real-time haxoring stuff at lightning speed using just the keyboard. (Real men don't need no steenkin' mouse).

--T
 
I don't remember the look of her computer, I know he said it was a 686 (which was before the 686 generation of chips were out, so theoretically it was correct) 'cept Intel had to screw stuff up and do PII/slot 1 instead.
 
Pentium Pro was the sixth generation chip. (And would have likely been called 80686 had Intel not moved to names.)

Pentium II was a Pentium Pro derivative with MMX and a slower cache.
 
I was always baffled why all the open source devs don't more often release i686 optimized builds of all the good crap. I mean if the app requires at least a 300MHz machine, what's the point of sticking to i386 arch?
 
barythrin said:
It's one of my favorite movies too and I actually do that sort of work. It was more so the personas were dead on and cracked me up.

My friend and I used to think it was a Compaq Portable III but yeah that keyboard is odd. I'll have to check it out sometime, do you happen to have any shots of it during the day? I thought there were some regular shots when they first move into the apartment.

- John
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it's not a Compaq Portable III

Here's another shot, though it doesn't really show much more. There are no day-time shots of it in the first part of the movie.

hackers5.jpg
 
Well, this is kind of funny. I'm watching the movie right now and I just noticed a continuity error. At 41 minutes and 42 seconds, when the hacker admin and the secret service dudes come to Dade's appartment to more or less threaten him into helping them find out who hacked the super computer, You can see a corner of Dade's computer on screen, and it's Spray painted with army camo!

They don't actually spray paint it untill later in the movie when they launch their little assult on the secret service dude seeing who can make the guy's life harder.

I've never noticed that before.

hackers6.jpg


Hrmm... that trackball. It looks very much like the trackball on my PowerBook 180c. That'd be a rather odd hack job. .. not a very ergonomical location for a trackball either. It probably is a specialy built prop... They did have that PowerBook with the clear casing typically used by Apple for prototype computers.
 
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Rockin' Kat said:
Hrmm... that trackball. It looks very much like the trackball on my PowerBook 180c. That'd be a rather odd hack job. .. not a very ergonomical location for a trackball either. It probably is a specialy built prop... They did have that PowerBook with the clear casing typically used by Apple for prototype computers.
Click to expand...

ive seen worse i saw a laptop with a track ball that was attached to the top of the screen in the center with no mouse port
 
There *is* that unfortunate possibility that it's a fictional computer from different parts to avoid at vendor.

BTW, note the only Mac user in the movie was the one that got raided. ;o)
 
My favorite line: "RISC architecture is gonna change everything" =)
 
barythrin said:
There *is* that unfortunate possibility that it's a fictional computer from different parts to avoid at vendor.

BTW, note the only Mac user in the movie was the one that got raided. ;o)
Click to expand...

Actually, If you really watched... prop wise, it was an Apple IIgs(which is not a Macintosh). Sure it showed Mac OS on screen... but then just about every computer that had it's screen on the movie screen showed Mac OS at some point or another.

Also if we want to start pointing fingers on who has a Mac... Angelina Jolie's character had a real Apple PowerBook so :p
 
Terry Yager said:
It's probably heavily made up to disguise it's real identity. I can't imagine anyone actually placing a trackball in that position either.

--T
Click to expand...

Um, didn't some late 80's/early 90's Compaq subnotebooks have the trackball like that? On the right side of the screen?
Compaq Contura, or Aero, or something like that?
yeah - COmpaq Contura 4/25cx - here's one:

compaq-contura425cx-bz4f-01.jpg




Take a guess where the mouse/trackball buttons are? No....they WOULDN'T! NO WAAAAYYYYY......



compaq-contura425cx-bz4f-02.jpg





T
 
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