Hackers (1995) - laptops used by various characters?

Have never seen the movie, but could the luggage-style computer referred to be a Kaypro? http://koti.mbnet.fi/~oju/retro/Kaypro_eng.html and http://koti.mbnet.fi/~oju/retro/weng.html

I also see a Newton MessagePad on the desk in one pic - I've got that covered! Got a working MP100 at home.

Jim


Capt - definitely not a kaypro, check out one of the screengrabs

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screen is very much different and no disc drives on the front.
 
Yeah, it's definitely an LCD screen computer (or maybe plasma and they just special-effected the screen in the movie). But not CRT. No visible drives on the front (possible on the side though), and the track ball mounted up next to the screen.

The weird thing is, I swear I can remember seeing a computer with a track ball by the screen like that back in the day. I remember thinking how annoyingly difficult it would be to use it... But I can't be certain. Now I wish I still had all my old Computer Shopper magazines. :) I miss buying those HUGE magazines and spending days going through them...
 
Yeah, that's possible. They didn't cover the tiny Apple logos, but all the text that would say PowerBook, etc is painted over... Almost like they were just leaving a hint for fans, but not clearly stating 'These are Macs!'



It is, it's the same model as Kate's (270c)



Yeah, those definitely look uglier than something Apple would make... :cool I have pics of them in the RAR file, just didn't have time to try to locate them online... You only see them briefly in the final scenes I think.

Rik

APPLE has made some ugly products too.
 
after googling a bit - seems like some other guys were also on the hunt.

http://geeks.pirillo.com/forum/topics/computer-hardware-used-in

They mention Kate's computer is a PowerBook 280... Looking at the two:
270:
http://vectronicsappleworld.com/profiles/profilepics/powerbook/v270cd.jpg
280:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/PowerBook_Duo_280c.jpg

They appear to be identical except for the little button on the front of the base of the computer... I'm not sure if you ever see that in the movie...

The clear one might have been a special prototype/demo model that Apple loaned them. They made a few clear machines for trade shows and such, so it's likely that was something that was returned to them...

Rik
 
Well, after looking at the links , it's safe to say that the Kaypro is a brand of computers, not the term for the luggage-style computers.

Yeah, Kaypro is a brand... I remember them back in the day... :cool

I've also confirmed that the production did indeed hack (hehe) together computers from various parts...

I've figured out what most of Joey's laptop is, as used in the final Gibson battle. It's basically a Compaq LTE 433c, as seen here:

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But, the keyboard isn't original. Here's some comparison pictures. The main computer is definitely the same (notice the track ball next to the monitor (which seems to have been altered a little), the single brightness slider (a lot of Compaqs had two sliders there), the location of the power switch, and the hinges of the LCD...)

But, the keyboard isn't right. Notice the location of the directional arrow keys below versus the ones in the picture above. Also, notice the area I've indicated with the yellow arrow, that's the space in the laptop casing that would go around the original laptop's arrow keys. The keyboard has been replaced with one from another machine... Possibly another Compaq, but it's definitely not the original keyboard that came with that laptop... (And it's missing the entire row of Function keys.)

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Now can anyone identify Nikon's laptop? I think someone suggested Toshiba? I don't think you really get a better look at it...

attachment.php
 
Yeah, Kaypro is a brand... I remember them back in the day... :cool

I've also confirmed that the production did indeed hack (hehe) together computers from various parts...

I've figured out what most of Joey's laptop is, as used in the final Gibson battle. It's basically a Compaq LTE 433c, as seen here:

Actually, the laptop that Joey uses belongs to Cereal Killer (and it shows). In the film, Cereal goes a bit berserk, saying that he was sorry and that it had to be done. Kate tells Cereal to check the phones, which he heads off to do, and tells Joey to take Cereals place for the hack attack.
 
Actually, the laptop that Joey uses belongs to Cereal Killer (and it shows). In the film, Cereal goes a bit berserk, saying that he was sorry and that it had to be done. Kate tells Cereal to check the phones, which he heads off to do, and tells Joey to take Cereals place for the hack attack.

Yeah, I didn't think it was actually 'his', just the one he was using... I couldn't remember the details of why he was using someone's computer, but I seem to remember him stating he didn't think he was good enough to take his place...
 
Yeah, I didn't think it was actually 'his', just the one he was using... I couldn't remember the details of why he was using someone's computer, but I seem to remember him stating he didn't think he was good enough to take his place...

Yeah, Joey was a bit apprehensive to taking Cereal's place because he probably felt like he was a terrible hacker (as he did foolish stuff in the beginning, with his accidentally hacking into a bank across state lines and making an ATM spit out over a thousand dollars in cash into the street and hacking into the Gibson in the first place without truly covering his tracks, which got him busted in the first place). But the others ushered him in.
 
Now can anyone identify Nikon's laptop? I think someone suggested Toshiba? I don't think you really get a better look at it...

attachment.php

What's interesting is that Cerial's laptop keyboard has Apple Styling (looking at the 'unmarked' keys it looks like the typeography Apple used for they keyboards).

Nikon's is a Toshiba Satallite. If I remember, I'll take a picture tonight of the one I have which looks really close.
 
What's interesting is that Cerial's laptop keyboard has Apple Styling (looking at the 'unmarked' keys it looks like the typeography Apple used for they keyboards).

It could be possible that Cereal took the keys off an Apple keyboard and put it on his. I mean, keys can come off keyboards, and older laptops had the same keyboard setup, I think. I could be wrong, like I said, I don't have access to any of the older keyboards from that period of time.
 
It could be possible that Cereal took the keys off an Apple keyboard and put it on his. I mean, keys can come off keyboards, and older laptops had the same keyboard setup, I think. I could be wrong, like I said, I don't have access to any of the older keyboards from that period of time.

Well, there's spaces with nothing where there should have been keys on the real laptop, even if the plastic keys were popped off, the switches would still be there. I think the entire keyboard was replaced with a different model... I suppose it's possible they put PowerBook guts in a Compaq case... I'd be surprised if they went to that level, but if the computers were actually 'working' during the filming (showing the graphics and such), and they were working strictly with Macs for whatever reason, then they might have done something like that to make them all look really different...
 
Capt - definitely not a kaypro, check out one of the screengrabs

...

screen is very much different and no disc drives on the front.

Ah, I didn't quite realize that was the computer being referred to, thought there might be one that wasn't pictured here. Nope, definitely not a Kaypro as you say.

However, after seeing the Compaq LTE model shown here, I'm pretty sure I've got at least one of those, or a very similar model. My brother got several of them for the asking when they were phased out for newer models at the company he worked for at the time (helped that he was the guy in charge of computer procurement...). The known functional one is at my mother's house - she plays solitaire, freecell and a scrabble game on it. I think I've still got at least one non-functional one, can't remember if it's intact or not though. Guess I'll be checking through the pile of dead electronics tonight. I (half) jokingly refer to my house as "where technology goes to die."

Jim
 
I'd be surprised if they went to that level, but if the computers were actually 'working' during the filming (showing the graphics and such), and they were working strictly with Macs for whatever reason, then they might have done something like that to make them all look really different...

It's possible that they weren't working like they're portrayed. It's very well possible that they wired the screens to work with some off-screen video playback system.
 
It's possible that they weren't working like they're portrayed. It's very well possible that they wired the screens to work with some off-screen video playback system.

I doubt very much that the laptops were 'working' in any sense of the word. I would be willing to bet that the screens were added post.
 
I doubt very much that the laptops were 'working' in any sense of the word. I would be willing to bet that the screens were added post.

Yeah, I kind of suspect that as well... Or, if the screens were actually 'live' during filming, they were just directly wired to some kind of video player like CB suggested. I've seen that done frequently even on recent movies...

But, yeah, I kind of doubt any of them actually worked like computers...

Rik
 
Came across this page while looking for details about props from this movie, although this isn't about the laptops, I couldn't find any other threads to put this in.

The watch that Dade Murphy looks at for the time before the stop lights are hacked, appears to be a Casio ATC-1200 (module #1170), if anyone is interested.
 
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