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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew
From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: The Forbin Project
Message-ID: <1401@orca.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 02:23:38 EST
Article-I.D.: orca.1401
Posted: Fri Mar 15 02:23:38 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 01:23:30 EST
References: <877@topaz.ARPA>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 27

[]

	"Glad that somebody finally mentioned "Colossus, the Forbin
	Project." This film, which was released originally as just "The
	Forbin Project" didn't do well in the theaters, primarily
	because the movie going public couldn't seem to relate to
	computers in 1971 (when the movie was made) like they would
	now.  The movie was relatively low-key, without any
	shoot-'em-ups or other flashy gimmicks and was received well by
	everybody I knew who knew anything about computers."

Well ... almost everybody.  I saw it with a group of college frosh
hackers.  When we saw the Colossus machine room, the "willing
suspension of disbelief" was dissolved in a pool of laughter.  The
console for Colossus was made up of several (identical) front panels
from IBM 1620's.

Each such panel had a bright red switch labeled "in emergency, PULL".
On a 1620, indeed on every IBM computer I've seen, this switch drops a
short across the main power input to bring the system down very
quickly.  (This once saved a person from serious injury when their
necktie got caught in a line printer.)  The second half of the movie
has the main characters concerned with finding a way to turn off
Colossus, but they ignore these obvious switches.

  -- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew)       [UUCP]
                       (orca!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]