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Hello I'M LOOKING FOR 75 COMPUTERS FOR PERIOD (1990-92) MARTIN SCORSESE MOVIE !!HELP

The North East I'm not as familiar with collector wise but M.A.R.C.H and it's members (more PA area? but also a lot of NJ folks I think* (I'm nowhere near there so I'm going off memory of folks here) may be a resource. There are a few of the members (and founder) here so they might reply themselves or know of a local resource for lots of vanilla boxes of similar era.

Hollywood normally doesn't really have real things running AFAIK though so most of the time it's prop boxes and a CG computer interface. Of course real is absolutely better. I wonder if any google magazine searches might have results or pictures of walstreet around that era. Perhaps bragging about their computer system or setup.
 
I have an old Tandy monitor in the attic. VGA fixed frequency 640x480 60Hz / 640x400 70Hz.. (Fixed frequency because both are 31.5KHz horizontal.)

It still works I think. Last it was used though was in 2002 on a Sega Dreamcast. I used it to play a LOT of gaming. It has a very warm color to it, so on a movie screen it'd actually not look "blue" to the picture. But I'm way out in Florida.
 
I think at that time you were in was the times of change, and there was a much more diverse market that at present.

So in a typical office I would gess you might have a range of equipment. The IBM PS/2 would be current running Windows/3.1 or OS/2 1.2 which both date from 1990. But PCs were expensive so not every one would have one. I would still expect Lower grade workers to use some kind of Super Mini (e.g. VAX, SUN Server or DEC machine) or IBM Mainframe accessed either through "dumb terminals". Users with PCs might use terminal emulation to get to the same systems. If any one had a need for desktop power, then there might hvae been the IBM RS/6000, SUN/IPX or Digital Decstations on folks desk.

You might also have had a mix of e-mails systems. So whilst cc:mail and lotus notes were popular, in larger organizations most folks were still useing Mainframe or "Mid Range" based systems such as the IBM PROFS and DEC/Digital All-In-One mainframe e-mails systems.

I suspect that no one will actually have what you want in a single source. Also finding things like SparcStations or DecStations with matching monitors would be hard so you may have to use modern screens with some kind of mock-up display.

Dave
 
There's a bit of guessing going on here and maybe it's close or not, but I can say that the traders gear I saw and wrote code for back in that timeframe was not just a hodge-podge of disparate equipment. Generally it was what the service provided - after all, the traders were paying a few thousand a month for the feed (eg. Reuters IDN) so a roomful of RTs, ARTs was bye-the-bye. Cheap hardware or other non-sanctioned hardware was not on their agenda. These machines were basically never turned off from installation to replacement, I remember the dust layer inside them after some years was quite impressive :)

Steve.
 
One thing you can do, if you struggle to find enough working systems, is to connect a working old-looking monitor to a newer, working system running financial software, then stash the working system out of sight (hiding behind a file cabinet or something) and have an old-looking system on the desk under the monitor.

In an early 1990s setting, I would say IBM, Compaq, Sun, Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), or even Dell would look believable. Compaq in particular reused the same case designs for several years (up to 1994 or possibly even 1995), so you may find some systems that are a little bit newer, but still look old enough. It sounds like you have some computer magazines from the era to reference; if you see something that looks like what you see in those mags, you might go ahead and use it. The population of people who will be able to tell the difference is small.

Also, regarding monitors... NEC was a very high-end brand, so if you can find any NEC monitors that look like what you see in the magazines, you can get away with using those, especially on the desks of key people. NECs may be a little easier to find today since they had longer life expectancies.
 
I read a lot of the old PC Mag on google books, so this is what I Can deduct about that time period.....

The biggest companies leased their gear from a big manufacturer (ie. Compaq, HP, DEC, or IBM). The biggest name (And probably easiest to come across) are IBM's PS/2 series, followed by Compaq (Deskpro 286/386/486), then HP, then DEC. Back then, it was a common held belief that "noboby got fired for buying an IBM". Other (but lesser used) brands at the time included Zeos, Acer, Northgate, Gateway 2000, and Dell.

Local companies tended to stick with locally built or in-house built "White Box" computers....meaning they were built from parts that came in generic white boxes in bulk, and were often built to fit a certain job role...ie, an engineer using PC based software in 1992 would likely have a 486 DX2-66 running Windows (for workgroups) 3.1 or DOS with some Novell network on it, 16MB of RAM, and AutoCAD, whereas the secretary probably got a 286 running a menu (or DOS Shell) with access to WP51, Lotus 1-2-3, and DBASE III.

Also, a secretary or someone doing basic office tasks would probably have a monochrome monitor of the office is budget consious, whereas the engineer could have a bigger monitor.

In aesthetics, Almost everything was some shade of beige in those days, and at the most elaborate, would have darker shades of beige for the other parts. Black floppy drives were starting to dissappear as were externally visible hard disks with black face plates. The cases were boxy, had at least 3 LED lights on them, keyswitches, and buttons, and the monitors were on average 13-15" big.

Also, some companies DID have an elaborate mix of machines. Back when I worked at a major aerospace manufacturer, I knew a guy who had been there since the 80's, he told me back in the 80's-90's, most people bought their own computers and brought them to work....having a mix of machines, so uniformity may not have been the norm for all companies at the time. They might have the grpahics guys working on Macs, the Secretaries on Typewriters, and the Admin on 286/386/486 PC's. Also, computers were expensive so even some early 80's computers could still have been around at the time.

As for finding the machines, might want to look into some of those recycler centers, thrift stores, or maybe some corporate/government auctions of bulk PC's. That's wher I'd look if I were making a period piece and needed a pile of 486's to poulate a retro office.
 
Actually another outside the box idea. If they're just in the background you might just use cardboard/plastic prop computers, similar to what stores have on their shelves instead of real computers and real displays. You could have a few working systems that you could find if you really want to go that route then see if someone can make a quick mold of the case and just produce some empty plastic ones as space fillers. From there you could again CG the end result or put a fake CRT case on top of an LCD screen or other to get the appearance of a working environment.
 
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