Re: TRS-80 SIGHTINGS - A Usenet Compilation

Stephen Bendzick wrote: 
puritan_2076@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Here's one more sighting (sort of): On McGuyver, the episode "Ugly
Duckling", the nerd's high school classroom is full of NEC PC-8001's
(Model 1 clone with color graphics) with green momochrome monitors and
dual disk drives.



Actually, in that episode, there's a major discontinuity regarding those
computers.  MacGyver accesses the (nerd) girl's file at the console of
one of the computers.  In a medium shot, the computers can plainly be
seen to be silver boxes without full-height disk drives on the fronts of
them.  Mac issues some commands to copy the file, and then the camera
cuts away to an overhead close-up shot showing his hand taking a disk
out of a 5-1/4" full height drive, one of two such drives side by side
in the front panel of what appears to be an original IBM PC or PC/XT
(model 5150 or 5160).  This machine was not seen anywhere in the wider
shots of the lab room, and it does not appear again--until a later scene
in the U.S. government (FBI?) agents' office, that is.  There, it
appears the same machine (joined by a matching IBM mono green display)
is prominently featured.  The shot of the IBM drive and front panel in
the lab scene is quick (it lasts only about one second), so it's easy to
miss and does not interrupt the flow of the scene, at least on the first
viewing for most people.  But if you watch for it, it's an obvious
continuity break.

(That's not the only technical problem with the episode.  In the
government office scene, the agents want to know how the nerd girl
hacked into a military database, so they [stupidly] let her use their
computer to show them; then she asks for their password to save time,
and they [stupidly] give it to her.  Then she starts accessing the files
they're upset she got into before, by typing selections from on-screen
menus at a prompt, and the two agents start talking between themselves
about how awful it is that she got in so quickly and easily.  Come on
guys, you gave her the password, and the menus were plain!!  She didn't
actually have to hack through any security!  And that's just the
beginning--later, when the girl and MacGyver do radio triangulation, the
angles are so extreme [11 and 2 o'clock, I think] that the people whose
position they're trying to triangulate should be about twenty feet in
front of them!  Yet, of course, they're not.  Well, at least the
principle is accurately represented.)

Nonetheless, I loved that episode; it was fun, and there's something to
be said for unrealistic television fiction.  I only noticed the
episode's vintage computer hardware in recent years.  (But then, when I
first saw the episode, the equipment wasn't vintage!)

Anyone want to do a list of Tandy 1000 sightings?  I saw one in another
MacGyver episode, which I've posted about before--it's the episode about
the Japanese(?) boy who inherits his grandfather's import company after
the grandfather is murdered, and the Tandy 1000 (SX? TX?) is on the desk
in the final scene before the end credits.  I don't imagine there are
too many more, but I think I've had a couple of other sightings.

Stephen

Watching TV with you guys must drive the wives crazy. I know mine would have left the room long ago.

I'm not saying whether that's good or bad . . . .

:-)

Nels
.

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