’90s Computing Nostalgia
Engineer identifies and explains every ’90s computer seen in Jurassic Park
Yes, it was, in fact, a Unix system.
Credit:
Universal Pictures
Credit:
Universal Pictures
Jurassic Park, while beloved as a film, has been the subject of snarky memes for the infamous line in which one of the characters declares, “This is a Unix system, I know this!” while using a computer with an unusual 3D file manager interface.
Despite the memes, the film’s production team was meticulous in accurately sourcing the right PCs (and adjacent details) for the sets—not too much of a surprise, given writer Michael Crichton’s background with computing and his obsessive attention to detail in the book the film is based on.
This was made clear by a little hobbyist investigation from Google software engineer Fabien Sanglard. He scanned the film and picked out every specifically identifiable piece of hardware he could see, listed what they were, and shared context from other sources on their specs, costs, and how they ended up in the production.
Truthfully, none of this is new information; people have been discussing the technology in Jurassic Park for years. But it hadn’t been put all in one place in a highly readable analysis in a long time, and it gained some traction this week on Reddit and Hacker News. Plus, Jurassic Park has been on our minds given the recent passing of beloved actor Sam Neill.
Identified hardware includes (among other things) five Thinking Machines CM-5 systems, a Motorola Envoy PDA, and multiple then-cutting-edge SGI workstations, including an IRIS Crimson and an R4000 Indigo. For additional background, Sanglard shared this quote from Jurassic Park special effects coordinator Cory Faucher, as seen in the book The Making of Jurassic Park:
Everything in the set was real. We couldn’t fake any of it, because audiences are so sophisticated now in their knowledge of computers. All told, $875,000 worth of computer hardware loaned by Silicon Graphics, $350,000 worth from Apple and some $500,000 in additional hardware and software went into equipping both the set and off-stage control room.
Two of character Dennis Nedry’s computers were Macs; each was a Macintosh Quadra 700. That’s a bit ironic, given the reported policy that today’s Apple has against product placement that puts the company’s devices in the hands of villains.
There was thought put into the software, too. Many of us recognized the QuickTime video player in the film. Sanglard observes that characters were working in a real CLI at various points, and of course, there’s FSN, the real experimental 3D file system browser that prompted the “this is a Unix system” line. (Yes, it is indeed a Unix system.)
Side note: If you want to experiment with the FSN file explorer yourself, you can. Earlier this year, computer historian and enthusiast Andrew Warkentin released a 174GB collection dubbed the “Virtual OS Museum” that includes some of the software you see in the film.
You can find more devices to investigate, their specs, and other interesting historical quotes in Sanglard’s blog post.
