[Telecom] Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Condor" movie

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Author

Date

[Telecom] Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Condor" movie

hancock4

01-09-2008

Re: [Telecom] Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Co ..

Scott Dorsey

01-10-2008

[Telecom] Re: Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Co ..

Henry

01-10-2008

Re: [Telecom] Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Co ..

DTC

01-11-2008

Posted by on January 9, 2008, 10:17 pm

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The 1975 movie "Three Days of the Condor" was on TCM the other night.
It's about a CIA book researcher (Robert Redford) who gets into
trouble. Good movie. It had a number of interesting telephone and
technical details of that era.

The researcher used a DEC/PDP mini-computer which for its time was
modern. It had the tiny tape wheels such machines were noted for and
relatively quiet dot-matrix printers, somewhat new for the time. (The
printers were certainly more quiet than line printers or Teletype or
Selectric printers). It had an optical scanner to read the books.
But one old fashioned item was an old style 1948 IBM 026 keypunch; by
1975 the standard keypunch was the 1960s IBM model 029. I'm not even
sure the PDP accepted punched cards as input.

(Some non-IBM computers needed to use the older 026 keypunch because
they used BCD internal coding where as the 029 was EBCDIC).

Some scenes took place outside and inside the World Trade Center,
which were a bit sad to watch.

On the streets of New York City and in the Hoboken Erie-Lackawanna
railroad terminal, there were both traditional public phone booths
(both aluminum and painted green) as well as pay phones on pedestals.
I do recall at that time that street phone booths were gradually being
converted to pedestals, though plenty of booths remained. All
payphones in the movie were single slot, rotary. I don't recall if
the old 3-slot pay phones remained in service in large cities in
1975.

(There are a few baby-Bell outdoor public phone booths remaining in
service to this day in various places; though the New York Times
reported they are extremely rare in New York City.)

Someone made a credit card purchase in a store, the cashier phoned in
the verification by voice, reading the credit card info and
transaction over the phone. I forgot about those days. In so many
stores today the credit card verification is integrated in the cash
register itself, others have a separate keypad unit. I haven't seen
an oral transaction in many years.

Regular telephones in the movie were both Touch Tone and rotary. In
1975 Touch Tone was gaining. Business phones were keyset and Call
Director. Every phone had a bell ringer, no chirping.

Redford stole a phone man's briefcase and snuck into a hotel utility
room. Using a rotary "butt" testset, he called someone's room, then
recorded the person's outward dialing. He then called a computer to
translate the outpulsing into a number, then called a Bell office to
get a name and address for that number.

Redford then snuck into a New York Telephone Company crossbar central
office (the name plainly marked on the wall, with an old style Bell
logo), and called the CIA from a test frame. He kept plugging in
different spots to thwart their attempt to trace the car, making it
appear his call was coming from multiple places in Brooklyn. (Whether
that was truly possible or dramatic license I don't know.)

Spring Sale Save 20% Banner - Sale Ended 5/3/07 So Updated to NonPromo Ad

Posted by Scott Dorsey on January 10, 2008, 12:31 pm

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>The 1975 movie "Three Days of the Condor" was on TCM the other night.

>It's about a CIA book researcher (Robert Redford) who gets into

>trouble. Good movie. It had a number of interesting telephone and

>technical details of that era.

Many of which were wrong.

>The researcher used a DEC/PDP mini-computer which for its time was

>modern. It had the tiny tape wheels such machines were noted for and

>relatively quiet dot-matrix printers, somewhat new for the time. (The

>printers were certainly more quiet than line printers or Teletype or

>Selectric printers). It had an optical scanner to read the books.

>But one old fashioned item was an old style 1948 IBM 026 keypunch; by

>1975 the standard keypunch was the 1960s IBM model 029. I'm not even

>sure the PDP accepted punched cards as input.

The printers were a lot more quiet than they were in real life. The
PDP-8 was a minimal configuration, but there was enough of it there
to actually operate, and it did have standard DECTape drives.

The 026 keypunch had nothing to do with the PDP-8. And the "scanner"
that turned pages in the books was also pure Hollywood.

>Redford then snuck into a New York Telephone Company crossbar central

>office (the name plainly marked on the wall, with an old style Bell

>logo), and called the CIA from a test frame. He kept plugging in

>different spots to thwart their attempt to trace the car, making it

>appear his call was coming from multiple places in Brooklyn. (Whether

>that was truly possible or dramatic license I don't know.)

It was completely Hollywood and in no way realistic. In the original
book "Six Day of the Condor," Condor uses a series of cheeseboxes at
payphones throughout New York to hide his call, which is a lot more
realistic but less exciting on-screen than a trip through a crossbar
switch.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Posted by Henry on January 10, 2008, 12:39 pm

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A propos technology and classic movies -- although not specifically
telecom related -- I recently saw Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece 'Taxi
Driver' again. The scenes in the political campaign headquarters seem
quite funny now because on all the desks there was ... a typewriter!
(i.e., _not_ a pc or laptop).

I suppose 32 years qualifies 'Taxi Driver' as an "old" movie, but isn't
it interesting how changes in the world and changes in oneself combine
to radically alter your perspective on things? I remember very well when
I was a teenager in the '60s, watching the ancient films from the '30s
and '40s. What a strange world they depicted: funny clothes, funny cars,
even funny ways of speaking. The interval in time between now and the
'70s is the same (or even greater) than the gap was for my teenage self
and those old gangster flicks I liked, yet when I today watch pictures
made in the '60s and '70s they don't, for the most part, seem so remote.
This has to be due to the fact that I myself lived through that time.

But what about changes in the world? I wonder if kids today watching
movies from, say, the '70s and '80s have the same reaction to the 'old'
cars that I did? Do they find them quaint? I suspect not. The reason
could be that in the 1930s the technology of the personal automobile was
still comparatively new. The lengthening perspective from the '60s back
to the '30s reflected nearly a _doubling_ of the history of the
motor-car, up to that time. The 30 years from today back to the '70s is
only some, what?, 30% of the total history of the evolution of such
vehicles. Moreover, look at the effects that resulted as the technology
matured over the decades. From the 1970s onward, as concerns about fuel
economy became paramount, computer-assisted design techniques meant that
the old-fashioned radical differences in the appearance of different
makes of car have largely disappeared. And not only do cars today look
more like each other: cars of 2008 look more like cars of 1978 than cars
of 1968 resembled those of 1938. (At least on the outside: under the
hood, of course, there are wondrous changes.)

In the world of high-tech, the comparison between today and the '60s or
'70s seems analogous to the earlier situation with cars. Modern kids
watching ancient films such as '2001' must be agog at the behemoth
mainframes -- real and 'speculative' -- that they see there; that is, if
they don't simply find those cutting-edge marvels of engineering of yore
to be altogether laughable. And so it goes.

cheers,

Henry

Posted by Steven Lichter on January 10, 2008, 5:29 pm

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Henry wrote:

> A propos technology and classic movies -- although not specifically

> telecom related -- I recently saw Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece 'Taxi

> Driver' again. The scenes in the political campaign headquarters seem

> quite funny now because on all the desks there was ... a typewriter!

> (i.e., _not_ a pc or laptop).

> I suppose 32 years qualifies 'Taxi Driver' as an "old" movie, but isn't

> it interesting how changes in the world and changes in oneself combine

> to radically alter your perspective on things? I remember very well when

> I was a teenager in the '60s, watching the ancient films from the '30s

> and '40s. What a strange world they depicted: funny clothes, funny cars,

> even funny ways of speaking. The interval in time between now and the

> '70s is the same (or even greater) than the gap was for my teenage self

> and those old gangster flicks I liked, yet when I today watch pictures

> made in the '60s and '70s they don't, for the most part, seem so remote.

> This has to be due to the fact that I myself lived through that time.

> But what about changes in the world? I wonder if kids today watching

> movies from, say, the '70s and '80s have the same reaction to the 'old'

> cars that I did? Do they find them quaint? I suspect not. The reason

> could be that in the 1930s the technology of the personal automobile was

> still comparatively new. The lengthening perspective from the '60s back

> to the '30s reflected nearly a _doubling_ of the history of the

> motor-car, up to that time. The 30 years from today back to the '70s is

> only some, what?, 30% of the total history of the evolution of such

> vehicles. Moreover, look at the effects that resulted as the technology

> matured over the decades. From the 1970s onward, as concerns about fuel

> economy became paramount, computer-assisted design techniques meant that

> the old-fashioned radical differences in the appearance of different

> makes of car have largely disappeared. And not only do cars today look

> more like each other: cars of 2008 look more like cars of 1978 than cars

> of 1968 resembled those of 1938. (At least on the outside: under the

> hood, of course, there are wondrous changes.)

> In the world of high-tech, the comparison between today and the '60s or

> '70s seems analogous to the earlier situation with cars. Modern kids

> watching ancient films such as '2001' must be agog at the behemoth

> mainframes -- real and 'speculative' -- that they see there; that is, if

> they don't simply find those cutting-edge marvels of engineering of yore

> to be altogether laughable. And so it goes.

> cheers,

> Henry

I saw a movie the other day on cable that was taking place in 1950's New
York City, the pay phone was right, but the dial was True Tone, lik
today as was the Howler tone. Someone was not thinking or was to young
to remember, but no one other then telephone people would notice that.

--
The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co.

Posted by on January 10, 2008, 6:02 pm

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On Jan 10, 12:39=A0pm, henry...@eircom.net (Henry) wrote:

> A propos technology and classic movies -- although not specifically

> telecom related -- I recently saw Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece 'Taxi

> Driver' again. The scenes in the political campaign headquarters seem

> quite funny now because on all the desks there was ... a typewriter!

> (i.e., _not_ a pc or laptop).

You would still find just as many typewriters in a 1986 office. The
big drop was after roughly 1990 when PCs came down enough in price and
high enough in print quality and functionality to replace typewriters
on a widespread basis. An IBM/XT with a 9 pin printer wasn't
adequate.

There were word processing machines in 1976, such as IBM's magcard
typewriters and specialty mini-computers but they were very expensive
and suitable only for high volume specialized applications.

Typewriters remain in offices, though fewer and not used as much. A
big need was forms, but now PDF forms allow on-line entry before
printing. Address and file labels remain a legitimate need.