glaurung | Computers in Hollywood, 70's edition (Reply)

Suppose it's 1977. You're writing for a TV show and you want to show how technologically up to date your villain of the week is, so you decide that in an opening scene he's reading a book on his computer.

Do you arrange for a TRS-80 to be placed on the set, have it load up some Lorem Ipsum on its copy of Wordstar, and show him reading that? Of course not. Don't be silly. Instead, you make arrangements with the opticals department, and have them do this:

a computer terminal, the screen has been optically replaced with footage of a book, the book's pages are turning

The pages on the screen get turned by an invisible hand. And then, after some chit-chat establishing that the villain, who is a page at a glance reader, only has a few more pages to go, you show this:

now the book showing on the screen of the computer terminal is closed, its front cover shows that it is a copy of War and Peace

And now, the villain, who is telekinetic as well, picks up the remote control to turn off his computer:

a remote control hovers in mid air, pointing at the computer terminal, which is now off
(Screen captures from Wonder Woman season 3, episode 12, "Gault's Brain.")

Pretty snazzy for the era of CP/M, Wordstar, and monochrome CRT's in your choice of green or amber, don't you think?

Computers in Hollywood, 70's edition

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