That was IRIX's File System Navigator http://www.javipas.com/wp-content/_FSN.png

She navigated the file system using fsn (which by the way existed. it just never catch on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn)

I thought it was so cheesy that it had to be fictional, because of all the misrepresentations of computer interfaces in other movies like "Hackers." This is apparently a common assumption.

It's admirable that SGI was experimenting with interfaces. However in this situation having to navigate such an interface created a very real safety hazard. I suppose she could have used the regular file browser instead - or perhaps the substantially less exciting XTerm.

Worst thing is when a movie did most things with real UI being thought as mocking things up. So latter movies increasingly use fake UIs instead.

I don't understand.

Sometimes life imitates art -- I spent a good amount of time in high school making my Linux system's bootup and login screens look like those on Hackers.

I suspect in SGI's case it was probably mostly another demo to show off their graphics capabilities. Nobody used it, but everyone I know who tried out the SGI boxes at uni had their five minutes of fun with it.

Things like that and running xearth as the background when logging in on the Indy's made them stand out massively next to the Sun boxes with monochrome terminals in our computer labs, which seemed ancient and outdated.

Heck, even booting them, with their nice blue gradient background and metallic frame around the window where the boot messages scrolled by set them apart from the boring Sun boxes. SGI early on had a lot of the design sense and flair that Apple has today.

Anybody remember "Buttonfly"? Now THAT was actually USEFUL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826qq6pslJk

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=...

There's an open source implementation called fsv:

http://fsv.sourceforge.net/

There is a collection of 3D interfaces here http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml

With modern GPUs and processing power these could be made silky smooth. Still mostly pointless, which is a shame.

>Macintosh LC II

It's actually a Quadra 700. Business class all the way at Jurassic Park.

We spared no expense.