Is the Unix operating system featured in Jurassic Park real?

Is the Unix operating system featured in Jurassic Park real? - Modern solar power station in countryside

When the film Jurassic Park came out, and I saw that scene where Ariana Richards is sitting in front of the computer and says;

This is a Unix system. I know this. It's the files for the whole park. It's like a phone book - -it tells you everything.

I've always wondered. Is that silly 3D interface they show on the monitor actually real? Was there a 3D file navigator for Unix back in 1993.

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Best Answer

Yes, it is absolutely a real Unix system, it was a Silicon Graphics workstation (using IRIX, the SGI System V based Unix) running a three dimensional file system browser.

Silicon Graphics were early developers of hardware acceleration for 3D graphics, so it makes complete sense that even in 1993 they had Unix workstations capable of a 3D file system viewer.

The fact that the SGI logo is visible on the monitor, makes me wonder whether this was an example of product placement.

References: Wikipedia, SGI-Stuff




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What Unix system was used in Jurassic Park?

A Silicon Graphics IRIX system, to be exact. And that 3-D file system? That was real. It was called fsn, and you can still download an open source clone.

Which operating systems were based on Unix?

Aside from Microsoft's Windows NT-based operating systems, nearly everything else traces its heritage back to Unix. Linux, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Chrome OS, Orbis OS used on the PlayStation 4, whatever firmware is running on your router \u2014 all of these operating systems are often called \u201cUnix-like\u201d operating systems.

What is the difference between Linux and Unix?

Linux is open source and is developed by Linux community of developers. Unix was developed by AT&T Bell labs and is not open source. Linux is free to use. Unix is licensed OS.

What type of software is Unix?

UNIX is an operating system which was first developed in the 1960s, and has been under constant development ever since. By operating system, we mean the suite of programs which make the computer work. It is a stable, multi-user, multi-tasking system for servers, desktops and laptops.



It's a unix system




More answers regarding is the Unix operating system featured in Jurassic Park real?

Answer 2

The application is fsn (pronounced Fusion). There's more information available on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)

and there's an open-source clone available called FSV:

http://fsv.sourceforge.net/

Answer 3

  1. As noted it was fsn, and it was actually an interesting example of a class of applications where we were using 3D navigation to visualize non-physical data, like file systems, sales data or stock market behavior. You could see large amounts of data, then quickly navigate to area that looked interesting and drill down. I occasionally used it, although find(1) had been worked on by an old boss of mine (Dick Haight) at Bell Labs when I was there. They serve different purposes.

  2. This was in the movie (not the book) because the ILM folks used SGI workstations, pretty much exclusively, had the fsn program and thought an SGI workstation would be cool to have in the movie. I don't think it was a product placement.

(I was at SGI 1992-2001 and used to talk to ILM, Pixar, Sony, Disney, Digital Domain, Weta Digital, etc. and I still have the SGI "building a better dinosaur" T-shirt with Jurassic Park logo, which wasn't easy to get.)

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