Starz is having a free weekend this weekend, and one of the movies that’s on currently is The Terminator. I just saw a scene with the terminator’s computer-generated vision overlays, and was reminded that the things that look like columnnar text are actually assembly-language program listings for the Apple II from Nibble Magazine. If I hadn’t given away all of my Apple magazines when I gave away my Apple, I could probably even identify the program.
Well, that first Terminator movie was made on a very low budget. Given the monetary constraint and the very finicky nature of the Terminator 100 series combat cyborg, the producers probably couldn’t afford a programmer good enough to write a real vision processing / artificial intelligence program for it.
At the time, my only computer was an Apple II. I figure that someone on the effects staff used whatever they had handy that looked “computerish.” The fact that it was an Apple II listing may have been intended humor, or it may have been chance.
In any case, my friends at the time didn’t understand my concern about being part of SkyNet 🙂