TRON LEGACY - COMPUTER REALITIES - 1982 TRON

[classyfunny]

Thanks for this insightful and nostalgic clip!

5:22 Modelmaker for Firefox with a scale model of the plane for the to be released movie.

5:28 Phil Tippet-Visual F/X Supervisor Star Wars V, VI. Tauntaun in foreground.

"When Tippett was told that Jurassic Park dinosaurs would be computer-generated, he was shocked, exclaiming "I've just become extinct" (a line Spielberg borrows and uses in the movie). Spielberg kept Tippett on to supervise the animation on 50 dinosaur shots for JP." -Wikipedia

[hpstarman]

Kray 1 Power !

[yorgle]

Hey. Is a higher quality version of this avialble? I'm working on building up a Tron Filmumentary, in a similar style to "Star Wars Begins", but for TRON. I'd love to get this in higher-than-youtube quality.

[filmsinfocus]

@yorgle How fast do you need it? Go to my channel and message me!

[MsMarco6]

5:22 by dramatic i assume he means pixar

[WildDancer101]

hey! nostalgia kickin' in! I used to have that vhs containing some random shows, and these are as follows: Lady and the Tramp, Imagine Computer Realities, Dr. Zeus's Partufle Pak Where Are You, and one of the episodes of the Edison Twins that is cut off by the vhs end. Today, my family dosen't know where it went into hiding, assuming that it is destroyed by unlikely hands. You have my thanks for putting this vid up.

[dtstrain]

Logic lesson: the guy who said that computers graphics wouldn't replace miniatures wasn't "wrong". He carefully qualified it with a large margin caveat: "Until something really dramatic happens". It is true that miniatures weren't replaced until something dramatic happened in the ability of the CG to look more realistic. So he was exactly right. For him to have been wrong, we would have had to see miniatures replaced with CG which wasn't dramatically realistic.

[sayrith]

Cool thing is that my computer thats smaller than a room with a radeon hd 4650 can render images that are 100X better than that.

[sayrith]

not HD? I am disappoint

[SergeyLoft]

LOL most faster computer in 1982, I wonder what his frequency of CP and GP

[TMundo]

CGI can't be gooey and shiny glistening with slime, only prosthetics and goo can do that. Whay animate goo when you could use real goo? Pan's Labyrinth frog scene for example.

[TMundo]

3:29 looks like the scene in tron at the heart of the mcp

[techguy348]

@TMundo Probably when they were making the movie, they ran out of ideas and decided to replicate the look of the Cray computer in the movie.

[ifreestuffs]

Thumbs up if you thank god for technology

This was cutting edge / jaw dropping technology back then and take a look at literarily the SUPER COMPUTER. my desktop is now more super than that. once again i thank god for cutting edge technology

[bengacris]

@ifreestuffs I don't thank god for technology, I thank the human kind!

[WhiteKatsu]

Thank you so much for posting this vid! I happen to love things like "making of" (My favourite parts of movies were always the 'behind the scenes' and 'making of' documentaries that used to air on TV, and they have become my favourite part of DVD special features as well.)

Thanks for putting this on Youtube to share with fellow users! ;)

[pengopen]

WOW! I remember that video about computer animation! How's that Clark Gable recreation going? The most interesting thing about this clip is listening to what the early architects in this video thought about the implications of CGI.

[WannaBeatle]

that was actually quite interesting..I think I have seen these clips before.

It was nice seeing some of the old ILM'ers in there, too..I miss those guys a lot (they can teach the newer guys at ILM (and most other effect houses) a thing or two.

[xdugef]

The guy that said it wouldn't replace miniatures is probably kicking himself

[crochambeau]

@xdugef

"until something really dramatic happens in computer technology" I think that happened as soon as they could walk away from the Cray..

[blackwhimsy]

That was fascinating! I love the guy who couldn't see the use of miniatures decreasing.Boy was he wrong! I still remember it was a few years ago when Rick Berman & Co quit using models for Star Trek Deep Space Nine,because it was easier to make pc images.

[Tommymang]

Thanks for sharing this ! :-)

[Lalo3001]

Whoa, The CRAY 1 Supercomputer. I remember being sooo impressed with it when my science teacher in 8th grade lectured us about it. back in the early 80s.

Kind of sad that the laptop I'm writing this on is probably more powerful than that CRAY 1. BTW: Whatever happend to CRAY and for that matter, WANG, Digital, Commodore, DataGeneral, Atari and all the other companies of that era?

[MOVIEDUDE219]

If you showed avatar to them in 1982 they would shit their pants lol

[McLarenMercedes]

@MOVIEDUDE219

Yes, and if you show Avatar to kids in 2030 it will look incredibly lame to them.

Terminator 2 looked awesome back in 1991. Not it's hard to understand what the fuss was all about.

Special effects can ONLY be seen from the time they were made. Back in 1982 NOBODY had tried something like a computer animated world for a movie. The concept was totally alien. One can argue about the movie but the fact remains it was a very important milestone for computer graphics in movies.

[MOVIEDUDE219]

@McLarenMercedes yea I agree with you

[brownm526]

I'm pretty sure my cellphone has more power than that 1980s "super computer". Pretty cool how much computers have advanced in 30 years.

[McLarenMercedes]

@brownm526

Yeah, and think about the computer power they had to use in order to land on the moon back in 1969?? Makes the feat even more worthy of respect. The computers on the lunar lander and the command module were from a time in which microprocessors didn't exist and integrated circuits still were years off.

We have seen nothing yet when it comes to computers. The future will be very interesting.

[phillyeagles0328]

"you can never replace miniatures" hahahahaha

[TrainmasterCurt]

@ 5:22, i wonder where he got that model of a F-119d stealth fighter, that plane is top secret

[Deralis01]

@TrainmasterCurt Thats a model of the "FIREFOX" from the 1982 Clint Eastwood film. always loved that russian Jet!!!

[jwallbanger]

you asshole.

the only reason they're obsolete is because dumb yuppies like you have to have the latest bullshit technology.

Vinyl sounded better than CD's, VHS lasted longer than DVD's. Every few years you get suckered into throwing away all your stuff and replacing it, quite a nice scam.

You should at least dontate those tapes to a thrift store where more intelligent people like me can pick them up for a dollar.

[McLarenMercedes]

@jwallbanger

BetaMax was superior to VHS, but VHS won (it was cheaper and the porn industry supported the format). Early lousy transfers from LP's to CD's resulted in CD's sounding bad. On good equipment CD sounds better. Often audiophiles compared their state-of-the-art vinyl players, amps and loudspeakers to cheap CD players.

Vinyls required a lot of care, and were fragile and tended to wear out after frequent use.

Technology is progress. Nothing wrong with that.

[jwallbanger]

@McLarenMercedes Who the hell is talking about betamax?

As far as vinyl versus CD's, musicians know best, and we still prefer the old analog tape recording, then mastering on tape and transfering directly to vinyl pressing. Why? It fucking sounds better, and i'll tell you why. Magnetic tape picks up EVERYTHING, even the frequencies we can't hear which affect the ones we can. Digital can never, ever take in as much sound information as analog, there aren't enough 1's and 0's in all the universe.

[violingineer]

@jwallbanger

Technically, there are enough 1's and 0's in digital, its just that the standards were too low, they decided to cut everything digital at the Nyquist freq of the AVERAGE human ear. 44KHz/2 = 21Khz aint high enough for some musicians, and analog media record significantly higher bandwidth. It's always a trade off between analog and digital, and where you set your line in the sand for digital. 44.1 Khz was good enough for "hi-fi" sound but didnt kill processors back then.

[jwallbanger]

well I've recorded on more modern, higher frequency systems and I don't know if it's that or the sampling rate but it still just doesn't compare to magnetic tape. it's cleaner for sure, but there's a texture and warmth missing.

maybe it's because i grew up during the height of the analog age, my ears prefer it over digital. i can even feel a difference on little digital box recorders versus the old 4 tracks. it's nice that the hiss is gone, but it still just doesn't sound right. empty.

[ijwi]

@jwallbanger I find it odd that everyone's ragging on miniatures in response to this vid as well. Not only are miniatures alive and well, LOTR was done with all miniatures... and thanks to Tim Burton et al there's been a total renaissance in stop-motion effects -- a technology everyone said was dead in the late 80s!

[jwallbanger]

@ijwi Yeah isn't it funny how when CGI first broke it was hailed as a total revolution in special effects and filmakers tried to make movies with nothing but CGI effects. And people quickly got sick of it because ultimately it was too cartoonish. The star wars prequels were like watching cartoons IMHO.

So now they've gone to a mix of traditional special effects and CGI which has led to the best special effects ever in history.

[Quirkehh]

@jwallbanger

erm, FLAC?

[jwallbanger]

@Quirkehh we're talking about original recording, as in writing and recording music in a studio.

[jwallbanger]

@McLarenMercedes And concerning VHS versus DVD, it's not progress when I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie, get it home and the DVD looks like someone used it for a beer coaster, and skips through the movie, usually always half way through so I have to drive back and exchange it for a less scratched one. Same thing with crappy ass netflix. With VHS I almost never had this problem. Now it's either buy the movie or download it because

DVD's are dogshit.

[seonidh]

Tron the original stole its costume design from the Hazel OConnor's movie breaking glass and she did that in 1980!

Check it on YT

[jabberwolf]

05:21 Poor guy, I wonder what job he has now?!

[jabberwolf]

My laptop is now faster than that Cray1...

The common computer is now faster than that super computer.

.... looking at super computers now and wonder what I will have in front of me 30 years from now... WOW !!

[Breinstein99]

The Cray-1 Supercomputer of 1982 would be a retard today. All the newer computers would just sit around and make fun of it as it drooled on itself with its huge tongue.

[directorwillie]

PLEASE! bring back the stop motion and the minitures.

[Anemicnapalm]

oh wow 64 kb, FART!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[detibry]

"that's so realistic looking that you cant tell me whats wrong with it"

hahaha if he only knew then what we can do now.

[negative1up]

Wow, the Super Computer than is like the equivalent of my regular, slow computer today...Amazing.

[realar]

Completely Computer Generated Feature Length Movie Ever??

Sorry woman Toy Story of the 90's gets that honor, but thankfully Disney has the most Computer Animation breakthroughs or are connected to them.

[minipizza]

@realar Lol... I love Toy Story, but Tron was first... 1982. 1995 is toy story. Good job. /trollend

[ijwi]

Woah, this guy really threw this stuff out, thinking a ripped copy of it would be archived on Youtube? Hmm, he has an unreasonable amount of faith in Youtube being survivable media.

[filmsinfocus]

I made a copy of it onto Mini-DV.

[mrnmrn1]

@filmsinfocus

Thanks for sharing it, I think it's a very rare video. But if you have a DV-copy of this, pleeease upload it again in at least 480p resolution and better sound bitrate! Thanks

[jpowell180]

In 1982 there was this other documentary on computers & technology (obviously spurred by all the Tron excitement) that also touched on issues such as robotics, and music synthesizers (had this one dude showing off his fancy synthesizer and I think he was sitting in the middle of a merry-go-round or something) - I still haven't been able to find that one.

[iniudan]

I like how he say his supercomputer go at 100MHZ at 2:30. Give a nice comparison of how processing speed went since then considering home computer were at that speed around mid 90s. =)

[CafeAlpha]

In a way it sounded wrong since he said that home computers were 1000 times slower..

That's only true because he was counting floating point operations, not integer ones, and because the Cray had 64 bit words and faster memory than home computers..

Anyway the Cray 1 was about equivalent to a 400 or 500 mhz PII and Tron LOOKS like it was rendered on a PII doesn't it?

[gastonventu88]

4:45 .. there was no way in those days.. now it's becaming true... but not yet

[Markin2D]

wow star wars special effects owned all the others at the time!

[masterpiraka]

5:49

That guy had no idea how right he was.

[phantomlord1981]

4:35 she says" incredible quality"..thats funny..it looks like shit now but back than it was great i guess

[masterpiraka]

You guess?

Are you serious?

[JeffZHigs1]

lots of directors choose to use anamatronics and suits. for example the movie the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. and also the movie where the wild things are. is using suits.

[StanAlter]

It's kinda hard not to giggle when you see the super computer. I don't think CGI will replace traditional FX. CGI looks like crap.

[whovian1971]

I don't think CGI will replace traditional FX.

It already HAS!

[StanAlter]

It hasn't. There's still plenty of old school tactics being used in movies. It's all about creating an illusion. I remember people were saying CGI characters were going to replace real actors. I don't hear that anymore.

[iniudan]

True but they sure often replace stuntman through.

[1wibble2]

@StanAlter CGI has already started replacing what we see of the actors, just look at Avatar, or Curious case of Benjamin Button.

[StanAlter]

@1wibble2 In comparison to how many movies don't have CGI I'd say that not all hope is lost for the actor.

[masterpiraka]

Not always. CG is good for making things that are LITERALLY impossible happen (t1000 in terminator) Practical stuff kicks ass in.....every other department.

[StanAlter]

There are some good examples and some bad. Good examples The Matrix and The Terminator , Tranformers. Bad example I am Legend.

[masterpiraka]

There were a few good shots in IAL. But I DID get the feeling they weren't going for total realism a quarter way through.

[taila1976]

Nice graphic tho

[mapgoon]

Two words for you: Windows Vista (sigh)

[jarkoer]

I was a kid when that movie came out. It made a short-lived sensation, but the movie looked a little too weird for me. Kids nowadays don't know how good they've got it. They've never had to learn how to make... computer punch cards! *eek*

[seifukusha]

thanks more making this. very enjoyable..

[synth3s1s]

could you digitize the ENTIRE TAPE ? i'd very much like to see it.

[fiveodude]

I can't wait until this technology arrives.

[jmm1233]

it would be nice if someone could make linutron , a linux system with a 3d tron type enviroment , most home laptops can do what there super computers can do ,

[Gauntlets]

Dat must've costed trillions back then. Now 4 those kinda programs, it's a few thousand.

Still expensive tho, mainly cuz it's a million (possibly billion) dollar industry.

[Membrane556]

Don't knock that old Cray back in the day it was state of the art and just about every feature in modern microprocessors such as SIMD instructions can be traced back to early super computers.

With out them core series cpus ,powerPCs, and strong arms the cpu found in the DS would not exist today.

[ZoeHannahan]

my nintendo DS is more powerfull than that super computer XD

[djt2012]

The making of Jar Jar Binks!

[soulchip2]

Yeah XD....oh wait..that's actually a bad thing! XD

[knightablaze]

Ha! a 100Mhz supercomputer.

[cameron20020]

lol its so amazing that my phone is more powerful than what they called super computers back then

[SeabeeBuilder1973]

wow. my computer is at three times as strong as was then at least. lol!

[covenant11]

Try thinking quantum computer...laser invitational processors dont solve the fundamental flaws of conventional computing.

[humexavier]

making a laser levitational processor is going to change your world in computer graphics and movie making

[Cerberus413]

HAHA the Cray-1.....Todays home PC's are 130 times faster then the Cray-1.

[pgtlaser]

Really? I hadn't noticed! (grumble, grumble, friggin' Windows)

[AEigner]

good one lol

[noskatermag]

Yeah..but they don't look nearly as cool. I love Crays.

[tonycdrive]

The computer can dream for you? does it dream when it's in the "sleep mode"?

[sethano]

yes btonycdrive, I remember seeing a documentary years ago about virtual intelligence, and there you would have computers showing sings of dreaming when on stand by mode, surprising their creators who were examining something else. Quite amazing.

[xjih78]

you look like a good person. thanks for sharing!

[ExzessivDasMagazin]

computers in the future, basing on light instead on processor technologie, will think for themselves... the possibilities will be illimitated: they will be the better scientists pushing our technologie 1000s of steps forward in short time. weird.

[WillysOne1]

No matter how advanced our knowledge is at this time, there is yet not even a simple glimpse of how can a practical functional quantic computer be made. I mean, we have a lot of theories, but we can't make a quantum computer yet. I, personally, think there are some basic rather unsovable difficultis in the way. in other words, it may would be like trying to produce dry liquid water. But who knows.

[kinggzz]

as powerful as computers are today and the developement of incredible animating software it really wouldnt take much more for just about anyone to make an original badass flick on their home computer.

[Satchel334]

Hard to believe these hopelessly outdated computers in this were once considered cutting edge technology. Man, imagine what computers will be like ten or twenty years from now. As opposed to how different they were from 1982 to 2002!

[jbaudrand]

thanks for uploading this video!!!!

[kinglonewolf104]

Thanks for uploading that. It will go great along with an article in 80 Microcomputing (80's mag for the TRS-80) I have about how they did the TRON gfx (graphics) :)

&eB

[StratusphereX]

Haha, If only they could see the unlimited possibilities of DirectX 10...

[x0n1c64]

They would die from shock. XD

[Stevanhale]

It's great how accurate they were in predicting that computer animation would be a mainstream in the entertainment industry. Those kinds of predictions rarely come true so soon. For example, when I was in grade school in the 70's, I was led to beleave that I would have a flying car, a jet-pack, and an apartment on the moon by the year 2000, but in 2007 those things are still decades away! I am very dissapointed!

[blackwhimsy]

@Stevanhale I hear ya brother! I was born in 1967,and I want my flying car! Still,we got video phones(ala the Jetsons) and they ARE working on a flying car.Hang in thee,man,we'll get there yet! :-)

[Stevanhale]

@blackwhimsy You can get a jet pack also, but it cost about $25,000 and is VERY hard to learn to fly. The flying car would be a bad idea. Accidents, even minor "fender benders", would involve not only the flying vehicles, but whoever or whatever happens to be under them. As far as living on the moon, you can buy land plots on the moon but I'm pretty sure this is just a sham and isn't worth anything like the "Star Registry".

[vmelkon]

This is nothing. Tron was made in 1982 because the hw was available but lots of concepts like phong shading and lighting, shadowing popped up in the 1970's. Lots of ideas came before their time. The idea of shaders were around since the mid 1980's. Now we have shader support in home desktops.

[Druffmaul]

Tron was made in 1980/1981, and the CG sequences were made by people who had been doing CG since the 70s, so whatever point you had is moot.

[jdobbs2001]

That model cray had only 1 megabyte of memory, it Ran a little over 80mhz.

[Mikeysouls]

amazing.

[SegaMegadriveMic]

To be honest, I think they are just a bunch of nerds. Cool video though.

[successiveaspect]

indeed this clip is a gem. Thank you for sharing it.

[i742]

computer simulation...computer stimulation!

[zeffii]

awesome : )

[martinfle]

This is a historical document! Important stuff for remembering the near past. Great clip.

[uniter01]

Haha my Ipod has more computing power!

[joelovesyou]

wow!!! you're terrific!!! thanks for sharing these treasures.

[dilanoshi]

what a f***in geek

[nealex]

i respect what you are doing, uploading your vhs tapes on the web as these films and documentaries will not be viewable in the future, until now

[dummy748236]

lol listen to the noise insde that mainframe room!

And i thought my laptop's fan flutter was bad....

[xiec]

Cool!

[makferson]

Great find!

[spinnermagazinecrew]

"without further adoo.."

indeed yes..

nice post tho

(tron geek speaking) ;)

thanks mate

seeds

[palebeachbum]

"...a common home computer." What? In 1982??? No such thing!

[spazzman90]

I guess it depends on where you lived. In 1982, I was in the 7th grade. Alot of my friends had computers. The Apple IIs, Atari 400/800s, Vic-20s, Radio Shack TRS-80s, and Texas Instruments TI99/4A were all pretty common. The next year in 1983, my family would get a Commodore 64. I'm glad we waited.

[chrisinmainz]

Yeah my family had an Atari in 1982, it was pretty good for back then.

[Redacity]

function at half the speed of light? Am I wrong in thinking that makes absolutely no sense?

[steve23guy]

hahah not at all.. but what about.. if a computer had enough memory.. it could dream for you... yeah, and if my cock was 13 inches i could suck it...

[Ragnark1]

Back then the average lay-person thought that ment something.

[neostriderbzk]

some footage from Devo's videoclip hehe

[happyseaurchin]

love tron... interesting retrospective... thanks for posting :)

[DinnerTimeMishap]

lol Fucking Cray's They have 2 on Ebay right now. A Cray XMP and a Cray YMP. Many of u that have played JP Trespasser have seen the Cray XMP

[kimosaaaabe]

64bit 250Mflops, 8megs ram! By 1981 Cray 1 was already 5 years old.... Still in real terms it was still pretty quick - you can't directly compare with a PC.

[imautobot]

The funny thing about that is the Cray 1 supercomputer ran at 80Mhz! My cell phone runs faster than that!

[celshader]

80 Mhz. That was so fast for 1981

[cyclist14]

Great! Its fun to see just how far we've come in technology since then and how much further we will go.

[sausageslaps]

and whoa? anal adventures 5? how did that get in there?

[kimchiman1000]

I look forward to viewing more like this. It really takes me back. Look where the technology is now, and then imagine where it will be in another 20 - 25 years. But even at that, the early 80's tech portrayed in this video 'still' seems pretty cool, no?

[nebby6]

Wow, those guys were so ahead of their time. Now, when I look at the modern 3D apps, I can see that pretty much all of the features that cinematographers and DOPs wanted in 3D CGI, are finally there. Now, it's just a matter of people actually making the images and animations. It was great to see shots of the Cray. What a gorgeous machine!

[xiaoka]

great video. someone should bind that model maker guy and ask him if he wants to retract his statement...

[sylewis]

Hehehe, Cheers Erik. A good find indeed. What dark VHS secrets have you got on that 'top' shelf of yours though, eh!?

[fmac524]

Great stuff Erik, thanks and what a fantastic movie Tron still is.

[ewabum]

Thanks for the blast from the past. In 1973 my father {military/defense electronics) compared our knowledge of the true potential of electronics to writing the alphabet, and that we are just going up the first leg of the "A".

[TheReelTodd]

Awesome! My first glimpse of 3D computer animation and the film TRON was on an old 1981 TV special called "Computers Are People Too". This reminded me a lot of that. I was a kid then - it seemed so futuristic... and here we are now! :-D Thanks for sharing this.