Eli5: How do they make the fake OS for computers in movies and are they functional?
In: Technology
IIRC on older movies like “The Net” they had a program made that would respond to basically any key pressed. So the actor could just mash keys and the program would display the scripted text.
This is a bit different, but on Star Trek in the 90s they had a bunch of light up display consoles. It was basically just a bunch of LEDs under transparencies, programmed to light up at different times. Typically these had a few “modes” they could switch between for things like standby, normal, or Red Alert (emergency) and the light patterns/colors would change. Someone offscreen would flip the switch at the appropriate moment.
There would also be a handful of buttons (or more depending on the console complexity) that responded to touch controls. Usually the script will just say “ensign operates the computer” or something like that, but Wil Wheaton said he came up with his own “language” for operating his console on TNG.
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