Electronics in pop culture - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: cubemike99
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 12:42:25 am
content: One of my teachers once told me that whenever a movie showed an evil scientist's laboratory or lair, there would be an oscilloscope displaying a Lissajous figure on a 'scope in the background; I had no idea that they still do this. Today I was rewatching the original Iron Man when I spotted a scopein Tony's workshop. Apparently even in the  future, transparent glass displays, holograms, biomech suits, and the AI that is Jarvis aren't enough to make a CRO obsoleteBrownie points if you can do some forensics on this picture and find the exact model.What electronics equipment have you guys found in movies, comic books, commercials, etc?

author: David_AVD
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:06:38 am
content: Sometimes you see a piece of equipment being used completely out of context. I guess 99.9% of people don't know. The rest of us either; 1) yell at the TV, 2) tell our other half "that's not right", or 3) smile to ourselves as we've given up with options 1 and 2.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:15:37 am
content: I've been souring on "Big Bang Theory", but one thing I liked about them was that they were always very, very careful to use all of the tools and equipment completely correctly. There's no "Urkel time machine" or what-not there. Now, they may have been using them for unorthodox *uses*, but that's what geeks do anyway.Except for Howard's robot hand. Ew.I don't like BBT that much anymore. They used to be funny, but now they're starting to actually accurately depict certain mental illnesses and playing them for laughs, and maybe it's just my berserk button, but I don't think it's that funny.

author: notsob
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:18:43 am
content: And you just must have someone using a grinder and throwing sparks all over the place, or it's not real.(and no safety glasses anywhere)

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:24:20 am
content: I like the futuristic spaceship consoles in Sci Fi in which all the monitors and display units are CRT types.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:29:56 am
content: Quote from: cubemike99 on June 10, 2013, 12:42:25 amI am not sure you can call it electronics. One "scientific" I've seen is plasma-arc lamp. (The kind that is a glass-ball with current arc to inside the ball. The arc follows your hand if you hand is close by.I've have seen it in startrek and other scifi movies.My daughter got one at a near by science museum when she was little. She was very amused when she saw it in an episode of StarTrek I was watching.

author: David_AVD
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:31:39 am
content: Even in things like "The Jetsons", the TVs were giant CRT units. I guess nobody back then (1960's) had any inkling of the flat panel monitors to come.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:32:17 am
content: Oh, was that the episode of Star Trek: Voyager with the slipstream drive?That ruined it for me, to be honest. I saw that and my disbelief was entirely unsuspended.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:34:02 am
content: David_AVD, that's why I don't ever try to predict the future. I've noticed that every time someone tries to predict the future they do it linearly, when technological developments are chaotic and disruptions are entirely unpredictable.I will never forget the "Bynar" episode of Star Trek: TNG. I was 13, and even then I knew that one byte was not a very good password, especially for a race whose very survival was dependent on their computers. That was embarrassing.

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:41:36 am
content: Quote from: David_AVD on June 10, 2013, 01:31:39 amYeah, unlike the guys responsible for physical props, the cartoonists hardly had an excuse!

author: lemmegraphdat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 01:46:19 am
content: Quote from: duskglow on June 10, 2013, 01:15:37 amI don't have a tv so I bought the first season on DVD. I liked it but that was enough for me.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 03:00:57 am
content: Quote from: David_AVD on June 10, 2013, 01:31:39 amActually,there were several flat panel technologies mooted during the 1950s & '60s.Some of the concepts were a bit extreme,like the thin CRT where the beam made two 90 degree bends,prior to scanning (I'm not sure how) the screen.Another one in the '60s had thousands of tiny cold cathode electron guns mounted extremely close to a phosphor coated screen.They were meant to be turned on & off digitally,but their beam intensity would be controlled by the analog signal.The very first experimental plasma screens were made in the late 1960s,too.What nobody predicted was the change from 3:4 to 16:9 aspect ratio.Remember,the people drawing "The Jetsons" were not technical folk,they were cartoonists!One thing I found delightful in one supposedly "more realistic" cartoon series was where a "NASA -style" control room was shown,complete with lovingly animated vertical blanking bars drifting up the monitor screens.This of course happens with real movie film,or TV shots of these places due to the fact that the blanking is not in sync between the display & the camera.

author: David_AVD
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 03:07:54 am
content: 90 degree CRTs were in video intercoms in the ummm.. early 90's I think. I still have one somewhere.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 03:52:50 am
content: "90 degree CRT" in normal jargon means a conventional CRT where the beam is deflected over an angle of 90 degrees when scanning (like early TVs)Black & white CRTs of the late '60s deflected the beam over 110 degrees when scanning,& were referred to as "110 degree tubes".(colour tubes were a bit less)Perhaps this is what they were referring to?

author: David_AVD
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 03:57:51 am
content: Here's what the CRT looks like:The gun is still 90° to the screen face, but just not the exact way i remembered.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 03:59:52 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on June 10, 2013, 03:00:57 amI've noticed that modern cameras and flat panel screens do not have this artifact, which is pretty cool in its own right.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 04:13:25 am
content: Quote from: David_AVD on June 10, 2013, 03:57:51 amSorry I doubted you!Now I see the pix I do remember them.The '50s idea was similar,but huge,hence the double bend.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 11:35:21 am
content: I don't think I've seen a DSO in any movies... it's always CROs. Probably the cheapest one they could find that "looks science-y".

author: deephaven
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 12:26:50 pm
content: Here are a couple of things the movie makers get wrong:When anyone is on the phone and the other end put the phone down, the person still holding the handset hears a dialing tone whereas in real life, the line will just go dead.Just last night I was watching a movie and they were playing a CD. The CD got stuck and kept repeating the last bit of audio - but it was done as though it was a vinyl record that got stuck, not the faster repeat you get from a CD.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 12:33:42 pm
content: Quote from: duskglow on June 10, 2013, 01:15:37 amThere is one episode that had some electronics on Sheldons white board in this office (I think it was an opamp integrator) right next to some of the usual physics stuff.Like a theoretical physicist had need to draw thatYeah, accurate, but completely out of context.QuoteIt's a comedy, and partly an observational/stereotype one at that, that's what they do.You either find it funny or you don't. Finding it funny, but thinking it's inappropriate because it might involve some aspect of the psychological human condition, is jumping into the camp of taking things too seriously IME.Almost every aspect of human behavior can be ultimately classed under some camp of mental illness, or I think more correctly psychological disorder etc.Make one taboo, and you might as well throw out the entire art form of comedy.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2013, 12:35:42 pm
content: IIRC this was covered in an old thread, with people pointing our various things and finding the models etc.Also, IIRC, in the Avengers there was a cheap arse multimeter in Tony's lab.