"It's a Unix system, I know it!": What was really behind the screens of Jurassic Park
Google developer Fabien Sanglard rewatched Jurassic Park once again, this time stopping at every frame to identify the computers that appear on screen. The result is a meticulous inventory of every workstation, handheld device, monitor, and supercomputer visible in the 1993 film.
Nothing on the list is exactly groundbreaking: the computers of Jurassic Park have been discussed for years, but there has been a lack of an orderly and readable collection in one place. The attention comes as the film has made headlines again due to the recent passing of Sam Neill, the actor who played the paleontologist Alan Grant.
Real hardware for a hard-to-deceive audience
Almost nothing on the set was fake. This is confirmed by a statement from special effects coordinator Cory Faucher, reported in the book The Making of Jurassic Park: "Everything on the set was real. We couldn't simulate anything because the audience is now too savvy about computers." According to Faucher, Silicon Graphics lent $875,000 worth of hardware, Apple another $350,000, and an additional $500,000 went into materials and software. Just the hardware from Silicon Graphics and Apple, adjusted for inflation, amounts to approximately four million dollars by 2026.
On the desks of the two technicians, Dennis Nedry and Ray Arnold, Sanglard recognizes high-end SGI workstations: an IRIS Crimson and an R4000 Indigo, as well as two Macintosh Quadra 700 units. The fact that Nedry's machines are Macs is almost an ironic detail today, considering Apple's noted reluctance to showcase its products in the hands of villains.
The supercomputers were just facades
The five machines dominating the back of the control room, with panels studded with thousands of flashing red LEDs, are Thinking Machines CM-5, still considered the most powerful computers in the world in 1993. However, almost none of this made it to the set: according to those who handled the installations at the time, only the front panels with the LEDs were assembled, and the flashing sequence communicated nothing; it was generated randomly.
In Michael Crichton's novel, the supercomputers were Cray, and for the film, the production turned to Cray to borrow one. The company declined the invitation, so they turned to Thinking Machines, which was more than happy to cooperate. The CM-5 also served as an involuntary backdrop to Nedry's most technical line, where he complains on screen: "I'm not appreciated by my peers. You can manage the whole park from here with a minimum of staff for three consecutive days. Do you think it's easy automation? Or economical? Do you know anyone who can connect a Connection Machine and debug 2 million lines for the pittance I'm paid? If there is, I want to see them!"
On Nedry's desk also appears a Motorola Envoy, a foldable PDA with a radio modem and infrared transmitter. Jurassic Park was filmed between August and November of 1992, but Motorola completed the Envoy only in mid-1994 and then delayed its release until February 1995. The mystery, pieced together by a reader, has a curious explanation: the head of frogdesign crossed paths with Spielberg on a plane and showed him the device, and what is seen in the film is an original prototype.
The most enduring meme from the film
The longest-lasting meme from the film originates from the scene where young actress Ariana Richards, who plays John Hammond's granddaughter Lex Murphy, sits in front of a three-dimensional interface and announces: "It's a Unix system, I know it!" That environment was not invented: it is FSN, an experimental but real three-dimensional file system browser.