Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail(fabiensanglard.net)
607 points by vinhnx 10 hours ago | 146 comments
tl;dr: A detailed catalog of every computer and piece of software visible in Jurassic Park (1993), including the Apple PowerBook 100, SGI Indigo and Crimson workstations, Macintosh Quadra 700s, Thinking Machines CM-5 supercomputers, PLI Mini Array storage, and a Motorola Envoy PDA that shouldn't have existed yet (it was a pre-release mockup shown to Spielberg by frogdesign). The article also identifies the famous "It's a Unix system" scene as SGI's experimental fsn file explorer, and notes Apple and SGI loaned roughly $4M (in 2026 dollars) of hardware to the production.
HN Discussion:
  • Nostalgic appreciation for the deep-dive article inspired by childhood memories of the film
  • Providing supplemental details and sourcing on the Envoy, source code, and CM-5 hardware
  • Personal anecdotes about working on or being influenced by the film's tech aesthetics
  • The film's use of real hardware over CGI explains why it aged so well visually
  • Reflection on the book's tech descriptions and how they compare to modern capabilities