One also cannot mention these without adding the excellent "Sneakers" with Robert Redford.
Eg, there's a lot of social engineering, and taking sensible precautions like not using your own connection. The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern.
Sure, there's a bunch of colorful graphics they put on top of that, but it's arguably a visual representation of "being in the zone", and something that's done in virtually every other piece of media ever. Any real job includes lots of boring work that never ends up on the screen, and you just get the highlights.
I mean, isn't that pretty much what happened this week with that gas pipeline?
In say, an Unix system, a tape robot is going to be hooked up to some sort of SCSI device, and probably nothing prevents two people from commanding it at once in conflicting ways.
Two people logged into the same system trying to figure out who the other one is and kill their login process or to disable whatever way the other guy used to get in -- also possible.
Even two people typing at each other is a thing. Linux has the 'write' and 'wall' commands, and there even was a realtime chat program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yX29R81doY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyvNidBF0w
So yes, the entire scenario of two people breaking into the same computer, sending conflicting commands to the tape robot, trying to kick the other one out, and even sending chat messages at each other is very much something that's plausible on an Unix system. Just without the colorful graphics.
It's aged very well; it was slightly cringe-worthy in its time. I watch it over about once a year now.
I believe Emmanuel Goldstein consulted on the film.
Also some very very funny lines:
Newton Crosby: Where are you from, anyway?
Ben Jabituya: Bakersfield, originally.
Newton Crosby: No, I mean your ancestors.
Ben Jabituya: Oh, them. Pittsburgh.
----
No. 5: Stephanie, change color. Attractive. Nice software. Hmmmm.
Stephanie Speck: Boy, you sure don't talk like a robot.
----
edit: how do you add newlines?
I didn't remember the Ben stuff either. I hadn't seen it since I guess age of 10? Put it on for the kids to watch with them a couple months ago and I spent most of it praying that Ben wasn't the thing they'd remember. If you have a reason to watch it again then I'd do so, it's amazing how uncomfortable it'll make you feel with modern eyes!
I think the filmmakers recognized how crap that was anyway, he's barely in it and does nothing for the story.
We're just going to have to accept that we were a bit tone-deaf back then. No one blinked twice at Fisher Stevens dipped in bronzer and doing his best Ghandi impression.
Not as bad as Soul Man however.
Completely agree on different standards back then. Definitely an area in which I think we have collectively improved.
Two presses of the Enter key. If you just do one press, like this (I swear I pressed it), it will annoying stay on the same line. But
two
presses gives that sweet, sweet paragraph separation you seek.
* Hackers — it doesn’t get the software too right, but it nails the feeling
* Sneakers — a great introduction to social engineering
Sneakers is another great movie. It seems a lot more faithful to how hacking works in real life: as you said it's mostly about social engineering, not how fast you can type. And the device in the movie is at least somewhat plausible. A mathematician could in theory discover a critical vulnerability in cryptography and build it into a standalone electronic device.
Hackers is awful. I don't get the appeal at all. I'll never understand why this movie is so popular. I'd put it right up there with Swordfish in terms of nonsensical computer voodoo.
There were a few great things about that movie: the technology was grounded in reality, rather than fantasy (except for the WOPR); the hacking was plausible, rather than magical; not only was there commentary on the geopolitical situation of the time, but it was plausible.
The end was incredibly disappointing, but I do not know how I would improve upon it since it is pretty much the consequence of the fantastical WOPR. It would have been a much darker movie if the WOPR was replaced with a more realistic computer.
1. It has a great soundtrack. 2. Fisher Stevens is corny as hell.
=)
Angelina Jolie's bare breasts. I'm confident that's the appeal.
Everything else is just dancing around the issue.
Otherwise, it's a very annoying movie.
ISTR reading that that’s the original explanation, and it is what the depiction of the programs-as-people (and agents specifically actively replacing people) is grounded in. The exposition—but just the exposition—was changed at studio direction based on test audience feedback.
(Personally, I think the change to in-character exposition is an improvement, not because it is plausible, but because it foreshadows and underlines that the “free” humans understanding of the Matrix is ultimately grounded in deception intended, as later made explicit, a system of control.)
Favorites about real and fictional creators:
Micro Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM
Pirates of Silicon Valley
Halt and Catch Fire
... and some documentaries like "Mother of all Demos", the history of Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, and the creators of the spreadsheet
(With an appropriate amount of evil, mental illness, and family drama thrown in too)
Or NCIS - of which I copied for an awareness training the part where the two geeks "go though the firewall" both on the same keyboard.
Also, the Jurassic Park scene to which you're referring was a real picture of SGI IRIX's 3D file manager. It was visual fluff, but functional visual fluff.