
Screen Art: Wargames (2010) - angrygoat
http://www.hp9845.net/9845/software/screenart/wargames/
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CamperBob2
Almost as interesting is the story of how the 'big board' displays we
associate with NORAD and NASA were actually generated:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidophor)

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EvanAnderson
Discussion from y'day:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21034381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21034381)

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cygned
Off topic: Apparently, many classical websites use black on yellow colors. One
can find this color scheme also in modern terminal emulators and various text
editors.

Does someone have insights on why that is so popular?

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LarryMade2
First early consumer monitors were just Black & White TV components, with a
white or bluish tinge, kinda ghosty and harsh with all the brightness, or weak
without being bright.

Then came 3rd party glare filters to put over the screens which had a smoke or
polarizing layer which helped a lot (could ramp up brightness and not have the
ghosting), many of these were green (some were mesh fabric). Not soon after
monochrome displays were out with green screen coating.

Later there was a trend for amber display, I belive it was because it was more
contrasty than green, which people working with spreadsheets and higher rez
(smaller character) displays. Some bought them because it was hot with
business culture. I know some people really preferred it though, but green was
fine for me, seemed more soothing than amber.

So for classic websites I see a lot more green than amber (textfiles.com comes
to mind), but it might be related to what the web designer was used to in the
past.

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reaperducer
I'm not sure why green phosphor was the way to go in the early days. But I do
remember that companies that saw themselves as progressive switched to amber
because it was believed to reduce eye strain.

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jacobush
I think the green phosphor gave more (apparent?) light per watt.

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zxcvbn4038
I loved the movie Wargames - the whole AI premise was far fetched in the 80s
but otherwise a very good movie about hacking. The screen effects were pretty
amazing for the time. I’ve always wondered if WHOPPER was a marketing tie-in
with Burger King, could have been called BELL GRANDE in an alternate universe.
The movie is a good example of how far voice generation has come since the 80s
and that was a pretty slick way to make watching text scroll more exciting for
a movie audience.

I still use “war dialing” lists from old issues of Phrack magazine when I need
a busy number to give someone asking for mine. But it’s been a long time since
I’ve caught someone using “pencil” or “joshua” as a password (or even
“trustno1”) but both were popular choices in the 80s (and 90s for the x-files
one).

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gwilliams
From IMDB:

"The computer name WOPR used in the movie was a joke based on a real computer
once used to predict war strategies at NORAD which was called "BRGR". The
Burger King "Whopper" is a "Burger"."

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kensai
May I also add here for those interested in the screens, the brilliant
Introversion games: Defcon and DefconVR.

[https://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/](https://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/)

