Just seems to me that every time a computer is shown in a film or on TV, it’s running some kind of custom operating system and rarely if ever the familiar Windows or Mac systems. Is there some kind of copyright issue that prevents filmmakers from showing Windows (or Word, or Excel), or do filmakers just not want to be seen to be dropping product placement in their work?
M
Only barely related:
In National Treasure the good guys use Google, and the bad guys use Yahoo.
Once I saw an interview with a guy who designed those fake interfaces. He gave two reasons for the practice: First, realistic user interfaces are typically so detailed that you can barely recognize anything when they are show in a movie. Second, even if you can technically read them, usually they are too complicated and the average movie viewer won’t understand them quickly enough.
I thought Macs were quite common in the movies.
Robocop runs MS-DOS though; one of the movies showed some sort of boot sequence and there was a reference to COMMAND.COM
Macs are way more common in TV/movie universes than in real life. Apple gives free computers to production companies to feature in their shows.
Agreed on the Mac thing, but they’re usually seen as objects and rarely, if ever can I remember seeing screenshots, or orcharacters in the film actually opening files or windows in Safari.
Macs are used because they look pretty. They have very stylish design, which in my opinion counts against them as they just stand out too much, but movie directors seem to get off on them so they scatter them around liberally.
Even though Macs have a minority market share, they are used extensively in the creative fields. That may account for some of their presence.
And can I just insert a gripe about these fake interfaces that make "sounds’ for every friggin’ action the user performs?! Arg!
Many of the computers used during the movies in the eighties were seen in the military or space flicks. Read some of those agreements. The operating systems claim no responsability for crashes and errors. You don’t run tha latest cyborg, ultimate weapon, nuclear bomb, bio engineer facilaty, or space exploration ship on Microsoft 2001 release 53. The scows crashed on an asteroid were running that before systems failed to notice an asteroid. I’ve read licenses that state not for milatary or medical use, because the developer doesn’t want the liability that places on them, if someone’s life depends on that software.
I’ve noticed several MS desktop schemes on the 'puters on The Office.
Even if the developers wanted to sell them to the military, they probably couldn’t. Military standards are way tougher than the standards used for developing software in the consumer world.
Probably for comedic affect.
PC Load Letter?
No, the comedic effect would be that an MS product is being used at all. :dubious:
You know what, I do want to express myself, okay. And I don’t need 37 pieces of flair to do it.
One reason may be that the computer is surplus, purchased by the stage manager, so the operating system could be Xenix.
There’s a scene in The Ring in which a computer screen is distinctly showing Windows. In fact, the scene is listed in the IMDB Goofs for that movie (first entry on the page):