The first artifact has arrived, a Samsonite briefcase. I am *largely* certain that this is the correct case; there are certainly a largish number of them readily available on Ebay. There are some minor differences between this one and the prop, most of the differences explainable as modifications: the key locks have been removed and…
Pretty sure I got this component nailed: This appears to be a “Pyramid” compact tripod. There are a bunch of ’em on ebay in the United Kingdom, largely for reasonable prices; but international shipping is anything but reasonable these days. Fortunately I found a vaguely reasonably priced tripod in the US that, while not…
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this, but I never fail to be impressed with the delivery. Steven Spielberg, director of “Jaws,” gave Robert Shaw permission to write this monologue about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (after the great John Milius had a crack at it). Shaw then delivered it, reportedly, drunk.…
On the left of the briefcase computer are numeral keys. These seem to have come from a Remington Rand Printing Calculator or something similar; that was 1957 vintage, so likely starting to become broken and obsolete by the time the prop department was looking for stuff to strip. Unfortunately these items are rare and expensive.…
Part of the “keyboard” from the briefcase computer has been identified. Many of the keys come from a Remington “Super Riter” typewriter; a dirt cheap copy of which was located on ebay. It appears that the larger right-hand component is likely a simple box made to order for the prop, with keys from the typewriter…
Behold the Chinese surveillance state: Almost any American would look upon this sort of thing with horror. And yet… I wonder how long it will be before it comes here? Consider this modest conspiracy theory… 1) There are those in government who seek the power to dominate, to impose their will on The Little…
Thanks to commenter “Mr_Hiena: ” the phone component of the “laptop” appears to be a Bogen TQ12a intercom: Fortunately there were (“were“) two of these on eBay. The two were identical to each other, but *not* to the unit shown above; the unit above, and the one in the “laptop,” have little tabs on…
The script writers are doubtless already hard at work. or at least, busy feeding news reports into chatbots to do the work for them… Massive gold heist at Pearson International Airport investigated by Mounties A news report Thursday said that 3,600 pounds of gold — worth more than $100M — being moved through the airport…
I would love to have a replica of the briefcase “laptop” that was built for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I don’t know that I’ll have the time or the funds to actually see that happen myself, but I’d love to see *someone* pull it off. Maybe figuring out what the source of the various bits…
