Topic: Kirk's computer

[knightstorm]

I rewatched Star Trek II recently, and I noticed what appeared to be an early 80s computer on a desk near the window of Kirk's apartment.  Since I was still in the womb at that point, I have very limited knowledge of the computers that were available then.  Can anyone here identify it?  I'll see about getting a screen shot up later.

[maelstorm]

oh god i just got back form the theater to watch it a 2nd time i gotta look again ..

[knightstorm]

I was referring to Star Trek II the Wrath of Kahn.  For future reference, I don't consider that garbage that Abrams puts out to be Star Trek, and I will never refer to it as such.

[maelstorm]

I was referring to Star Trek II the Wrath of Kahn.  For future reference, I don't consider that garbage that Abrams puts out to be Star Trek, and I will never refer to it as such.

i ahh i only assume because of the movie release you mentioned this.  I guess you saw it earlier today on tv as it was being aired heh.. i'll look now .. i've been racking my brain lol now i'm curious.  What scene in his room? popping dvd in now.

ok found the scene .. it's one where bones pours something for kirk (you can get a clear view as he leans foward to pour.)

made a pic for you.



closest i can come are:

one of these with a repainted/modified case..
Commodore Pet
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=102
commodore CBM80 (smimilar to pet but taller i don't think this one was the base for it)
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=105
Vector graphic 4
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=247

all of these would need work to hide what they were originally to match color wise also.

without a better detail look i'm stumped.  i think it's just a hackjob to make something what we might see in the st future. (monitor in a new shell and pc really hidden or maybe even just a monitor of some kind with playback of what they want on the screen from a different source other than pc).

[knightstorm]

I was on a train ride, so I watched the film on my portable media player.  That said, I imagine this would have been a great advertising opportunity for commodore.  Our computers are still in use in the 23rd century!!!

[Leermeister]

he collects antiques i think its an old commodore PET computer

[TAnimaL]

Funny, I just this moment re-watched TWOK with my kids (mostly out of defiance over STID) and afterwards flipped on the "text commentary" by Mike Okuda on the Director's Cut DVD. He points out that computer and says it's a Commodore 64. Then I thought to check out the behind-the-scenes notes on TWOK on Trekcore.com, which cofimrs that it's a Commodore, and that William Shatner was endorsing Commodore at the time.  (Given that it's taken me 31 years to notice the thing, not the most effective product placement ever.)

http://movies.trekcore.com/wrathofkhan/behindthescenes.html

[Panzergranate]

The Comodore 64 didn't come out until the mid 1980's and was both slow and obstelete compared to the Z-80 based Sinclair Spectrum, 8088 8 bit PCs (yes PCs were 8 bit in the beginning) and the MAC plus.

The early 1980's basically had the rule for computers that if it didn't have a Motorola, Zilog or Intel processor inside, it was crap....

Funnily enough the Rockwell 1 Mhz. 8 bit 6502 processor went out of production only a few months before the Commodore 64 hit the shops.

Commodore had to source what stocks were to be found globally to keep up production.

 

[maelstorm]

The Comodore 64 didn't come out until the mid 1980's and was both slow and obstelete compared to the Z-80 based Sinclair Spectrum, 8088 8 bit PCs (yes PCs were 8 bit in the beginning) and the MAC plus.

The early 1980's basically had the rule for computers that if it didn't have a Motorola, Zilog or Intel processor inside, it was crap....

Funnily enough the Rockwell 1 Mhz. 8 bit 6502 processor went out of production only a few months before the Commodore 64 hit the shops.

Commodore had to source what stocks were to be found globally to keep up production.

funny enough the commodore 64 wasn't a bad computer.  It wasn't my first commodore the 128 was great because of the floppy drive it had.  (my first was a ti-994a with the expansion box.).  Also the library of games for it was great at the time even though most the games were written for the 64 not the 128.  Early apples and the colecovision with printer ect gave it a run.  Atari tried to get in to the pc market with one of their models having a keyboard built in but it did not do so well.  I remeber a shop with the ones you mentioned and wanted one of those but by then i got the commodore 128.

[Panzergranate]

I can remember seeing a Sinclair Spectrum running a CNC milling machine back in the 1980's and they were as common in factories as they were in the home.

Until the PC came the Sinclair Spectrum was the world's biggest selling computer (including clones) globally. When the IBM PC came out the Daily Mail newspaper predicted that it was "The next "Sinclair Spectrum" and would prove to be as popular for both home, office and factory"....

A friend had a Comodore 64 with disc drive and demonstrated that the tape loading was faster than the disc drive.

I've had the Spectrum 48K (4 Mhz.), Spectrum + (4 Mhz.), Spectrum 128K (4 Mhz.), Spectrum 128K +2 (6 Mhz.) and Spectrum +3 (8 Mhz.).

My Spectrum +3 was hooked up to a 5.25" 1.2 M.Byte disc drive and a 10 M.Byte IBM MFM disc drive (though only 8.5 M.byte could be formatted and used). The standard 3" single side floppy was replaced by a 3" double sided floppy.

The Spectrum was always the king of the 8 bit micro computers back in the 1980's due to its speed and easy adaptability to user modifications, etc.

Until I had my first PC I used to also write PC assembler, Pascal and C programmes on the Spectrum +3.

I'm tempted to rummage in the loft and wallow in some nostalgic gaming.

Computers were so much faster in those days (no waiting for Windows to start up).

   

[Nemesis]

, 8088 8 bit PCs (yes PCs were 8 bit in the beginning) and the MAC plus.

Nit pick.  The 8088 was a 16 bit chip internally but interfaced externally by 8 bit to keep costs down.  A powerful chip for the time.

[Panzergranate]

Still handicapped by the 8 bit bus and all Z-80 based machines were faster back then by comparison. Lack of protected mode also gave total computer crashes and there was also Windows 1.03 just to encourage things along.

My 8088 PC had Pheonix BIOS, 1 Megabyte RAM. I later "upgraded" it with an INTEL 80386-16 expansion card that pluged into the processor slot via a jumper cable. It was then running a 32 bit processor on a card with a 16 bit bus through a 8 bit bus. Let's just say that replacing it with a Tulip 80286-12.5 actually meant that I had a faster machine.

I also had a 80188 based PC at one time and a 80286-16 NEAT PC of which I still have the motherboard. NEAT PCs were intended totally for industrial uses.

I've also had a PC with a RLL hard drive. Run Length Limited drives are as reliable for data stroarge as a Chinese cheap scooter is for transport....

Largest MFM hard drive I've owned was a 380 Kilobyte item which I keep now as a rare curiosity.

My most expensive PC I've ever bought was a 1989 Compaq Deskpro 80386-16 top of the range maximum expense model with the 80387 co-processor, 4 Megabytes of RAM modules and the then whopping 121 Kilobyte hard drive.

It cost £3,800 back then new.

Needed it for ECAD and circuit emulation.

Still have it and don't want to chuck it as I remember the price tag....

   

[Don Karnage]

The Comodore 64 didn't come out until the mid 1980's and was both slow and obstelete compared to the Z-80 based Sinclair Spectrum, 8088 8 bit PCs (yes PCs were 8 bit in the beginning) and the MAC plus.

The early 1980's basically had the rule for computers that if it didn't have a Motorola, Zilog or Intel processor inside, it was crap....

Funnily enough the Rockwell 1 Mhz. 8 bit 6502 processor went out of production only a few months before the Commodore 64 hit the shops.

Commodore had to source what stocks were to be found globally to keep up production.

Lol a 1 Mhz computer. When you see what we have today and how much you can have one new under 500$ or use for 100$

I was remembering the TRS 80 From Radio Shack. Don't know what power and all it have.

Also the evolution of the HD. I was looking at well I think it was a documentary on train and I see a big stuff that look like a HD. When the HD was well introduce or part of a computer?

I see stuff on computer, the "evolution" but nothing about his data storage, except magnetic tapes. I have see books on computer but it is something that seem to be forgotten. I don't mean the cassette tapes and the old floppy disk. I mean inside the computer, or where the computer store "massive data" When you boot a computer, did they have a OS? I only remember the old Commodore vic 20. And a computer in the late 80's working with Lotus 1 2 3. Yea that was old monochrome monitor, green font or orange font less tiring for the eyes.