Codeedoc - Programming Blog

Full List Of Things Computers Can Do In Movies

1. Single floppy can hold gigs of data and survive shootouts, flames and drownings without a single read error.
2. Word processors never display a cursor.
3. You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.
4. Movie characters never make typing mistakes.
5. All monitors display inch-high letters.
6. High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA or some such governmental institution, will have easy to understand graphical interfaces.
7. Those that don’t have graphical interfaces will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.
8. Note: Command line interfaces will give you access to any information you want by simply typing, “ACCESS THE SECRET FILES” on any near-by keyboard.
9. You can also infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing “UPLOAD VIRUS”. (See “Fortress”.)
10. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn’t go faster than you can read. (Really advanced computers will also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer.)
11. All computer panels operate on thousands of volts and have explosive devices underneath their surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash of light, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks and an explosion that causes you to jump backwards.
12. People typing on a computer can safely turn it off without saving the data.
13. A hacker is always able to break into the most sensitive computer in the world by guessing the secret password in two tries.
14. You may bypass “PERMISSION DENIED” message by using the “OVERRIDE” function. (See “Demolition Man”.)
15. Computers only take 2 seconds to boot up instead of the average minutes for desktop PCs and 30 minutes or more for larger systems that can run 24 hours, 365 days a year without a reset.
16. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems usually appear to transmit data at the speed of two gigabytes per second.
17. When the power plant/missile site/main computer overheats, all control panels will explode shortly before the entire building will.
18. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen (See “Clear and Present Danger”).
19. If a disk contains encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you insert it.
20. Computers can interface with any other computer regardless of the manufacturer or galaxy where it originated. (See “Independence Day”.)
21. Computer disks will work on any computer has a floppy drive and all software is usable on any platforms.
22. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it will have (See “Aliens”.)
23. Note: You must be highly trained to operate high-tech computers because the buttons have no labels except for the “SELF-DESTRUCT” button.
24. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional active animation, photo-realistic graphics capabilities.
25. Laptops always have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and performance similar to a CRAY Supercomputer.
26. Whenever a character looks at a monitor, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto their face. (See “Alien” or “2001″)
27. Searches on the internet will always return what you are looking for no matter how vague your keywords are. (See “Mission Impossible”, Tom Cruise searches with keywords like “file” and “computer” and 3 results are returned.)
28. If an internet browser is used, it’s either extremaly obscure or it just ‘made up’.
29. Digital images can be zoomed into endlessly with no apparent impact on resolution.
30. The time required to transfer money via computer network is proportional to the amount of the money. A progress bar displays how much have been transfered, as if dollars were translated into bytes and traveled inside the network.
31. People who aren’t even computer programmers (Math Professors Charlie Epps in Numb3rs) is able to create programs in no time at all that always work first time, never crash, and can be easily modified to some new requirement in 10 seconds.
32. Mainframes are navigated as a 3d world of bright lights with stacks of files all over the place (see “Hackers”).
33. IP addresses will always have an octet higher than 254, sometimes with four digits, for connecting to that superior network to which only they seem have access.
34. Relatively recent computers have hard drives that make the same read/write noises of the old 286 dinosaurs.
35. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain’s desktop computer even if it’s turned off.
36. Criminal firing a bullet through the side of a computer case *always* seems to know the exactly location of the hard drive and is confident in completely destroying every trace of data from the platters with a single shot because he knows nobody ever makes backups.
37. All criminal computers with sensitive, incriminating data erase themselves instantaneously when the professional forensic computer analysts turn them on, but a single file erased within an operating system at a critical moment takes, on average, about 5 minutes.
38. Encrypted data is always displayed on a screen in some scrolling green semi-paleolithic characters and, upon decryption, will display–character for character–a resulting English equivalent.
39. Transfers of text data over wired networks can take hours, but small, credit card size memory chips can absorb arbitrary amounts of highly complex 3D schematics for an entire military grade weapon in seconds…. through a computer monitor.
40. Entering an incorrect password always results in the screen being covered by a flashing color background with huge words “ACCESS DENIED!” across it, accompanied by a horn or siren.
41. The world’s best video games are poorly rendered and animated gore fests, usually consisting entirely of knocking over hookers and kicking them to death.
42. E-mail can be sent and received from anywhere although in order to read any one must sit through a lengthy, 3D animation of an envelope being opened and the message being removed and unfolded.
43. All fast computers must have 7 or 8 monitors randomly positioned and all displaying the same exact 3D animation of what is presumably the fictional operating system’s splash screen. Oh yeah, also any real hacker can type 5,000 words per minute by slapping the keyboard repeatedly as hard as they can (Both of these from Swordfish).
44. Another good one is the Matrix style encryption which is constantly moving across the screen until someone hits the “magic” button. The best part about that one is that rather than decrypting the whole file, it does so one character at a time by flipping the characters around like they do in old stock tickers.
45. Often when uploading something from a disc, you simply need to insert the disc and hit Enter, because the OS will autorun the “Upload_Important_Stuff.exe” file located on the disc when you do so. Just like downloading something to a disc simply involves inserting the disc and pressing Enter because the OS runs “Download_Important_Stuff.exe” located on the computer whenever an empty disc is inserted.