One thing really confuses me about Michael "communicating" with Walt (?) on the Swan hatch computer.

Now I may not be the most computer literate person on the face of the earth, or even on the Isle of Lost, but I seem to remember that when you typed in anything after a DOS prompt which is what the >: character appears to be, what you were doing was sending a command to the computer's operating system to perform a function.

Something like >: del c:*.* would tell it to delete all files in the c drive. I remember often getting frustrated because I couldn't remember the commands that were required to be typed.

I do remember, however, that if you typed something like "Hello?" after the prompt you would always get a response that was something like "Unknown command" and then the cursor would be blinking next to the next DOS prompt, waiting for you to enter a proper command. The only way you would get any response other than that was to type a command that the operating system was programmed to recognize.

Maybe I'm trying to over-analyze the reality of this communication by Michael, but I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has any good explanation of how this could work.

I think they were using one of the first versions of IM...

You are correct, Losttravel...

I guess we're supposed to gloss over that fact and not pay much attention to it.

In the same vein, I can't think of a DOS program that would know what to do with "4 8 15 16 23 42" typed into the command line either.. so perhaps it's not a DOS type of system.. but we've assumed it's one because they use the same type of prompt as DOS.

Who said it was dos?

The made up their own Flight company - wouldn't the show make up their own OS as well?

i hate to make myself feel old like this but...

lots of stuff used to be command line, in the early days of computer communications bbs's used to be largely command line driven, even my first email program, pine was mostly command line. anyhow, it doesn't seem odd that this is the same, given the time when this was designed. computer used to be functional first, and form second, it wasn't until the late 80's when mac first made the GUI really useable.it's not that odd.

quote:

Originally posted by losttravel:
One thing really confuses me about Michael "communicating" with Walt (?) on the Swan hatch computer.

Now I may not be the most computer literate person on the face of the earth, or even on the Isle of Lost, but I seem to remember that when you typed in anything after a DOS prompt which is what the >: character appears to be, what you were doing was sending a command to the computer's operating system to perform a function.

Something like >: del c:*.* would tell it to delete all files in the c drive. I remember often getting frustrated because I couldn't remember the commands that were required to be typed.

I do remember, however, that if you typed something like "Hello?" after the prompt you would always get a response that was something like "Unknown command" and then the cursor would be blinking next to the next DOS prompt, waiting for you to enter a proper command. The only way you would get any response other than that was to type a command that the operating system was programmed to recognize.

Maybe I'm trying to over-analyze the reality of this communication by Michael, but I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has any good explanation of how this could work.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in DOS it would have shown "C:\" as the prompt line. "C" would be the local drive that the computer was accessing....

Perhaps the computer was running a custom written OS in BASIC or PASCAL???

LOL ... well, I guess I proved my point about my computer illiteracy. I never realized that DOS was a Microsoft Operating System. Thought all Microsoft Operating Systems were labeled MS-DOS. I actually thought DOS was Disk Operating System, which I also thought was synonymous with Operating System.

Appreciate all the info from everyone.

Apparently, this computer that they have in the hatch has its own special operating system which locks out any input except when receiving some form of Instant Message, recognizes commands like 4 8 15 16 23 42, and also is capable of sending / receiving messages using the command line. No wonder they haven't updated in 20-30 years. With all the hackers out there attacking MS OS's, they must feel very safe with their system.

Well, if they've got enough money to have their own island and set up a series of wacky operations, they can probably have their own custom computer system built. That's probably the case simply because it gives the show's writers more leeway in how the computer behaves.

quote:

Originally posted by losttravel:
LOL ... well, I guess I proved my point about my computer illiteracy. I never realized that DOS was a Microsoft Operating System. Thought all Microsoft Operating Systems were labeled MS-DOS. I actually thought DOS was Disk Operating System, which I also thought was synonymous with Operating System.

Appreciate all the info from everyone.

Apparently, this computer that they have in the hatch has its own special operating system which locks out any input except when receiving some form of Instant Message, recognizes commands like 4 8 15 16 23 42, and also is capable of sending / receiving messages using the command line. No wonder they haven't updated in 20-30 years. With all the hackers out there attacking MS OS's, they must feel very safe with their system.

You are correct DOS does stand for "Disk Operating System" and it was a small OS before Microsoft bought it out from the dude that created it in 1980 - so that they could have an OS for IBM to use for their new personal computers that would compete with the TSR Tandy. Ever since then it has been known as MS-DOS. However, even for it was aquired by Microsoft the "C:\" was being used as the directory name (drive name - nowadays) that the computer was accessing. Just some useless computer history for ya...

Interesting....perhaps the OS is actaully the TSR OS or even a Commadore...

-bigczar

The computer appears to be an apple II I dont know if that is the correct prompt for apple dos as I havent used one (I was partial to trs-80).

if I had to guess (and I do) I would say someone wrote a program that did nothing after accepting the numbers
4 8 15 16 23 42

and another that Prompted Hello?
and responded as we saw in the episode.

quote:

Originally posted by gordonkid:
i hate to make myself feel old like this but...

lots of stuff used to be command line, in the early days of computer communications bbs's used to be largely command line driven, even my first email program, pine was mostly command line. anyhow, it doesn't seem odd that this is the same, given the time when this was designed. computer used to be functional first, and form second, it wasn't until the late 80's when mac first made the GUI really useable.it's not that odd.

Oh no!! Please no "I remember when I dropped my punchcards, and didn't have them numbered" stories!!

hahahaha - just teasing you!! Not to make myself sound old, but I understood EVERY word you said!!

If as we've seen the Swan computer has the ability to communitcate with other hatch computer stations on the island or other place, does that mean that the numbers they've been typing in all this time are being viewed by other people on other computers? If so, then by not inputting the numbers when the 108 minutes is up, someone would know that something is wrong at the Swan station. If this is the case then the numbers could be used as a way to monitor the status of the people in the hatch. This has been discussed I think on other posts.

If Jack got the balls to refuse to let Locke enter the numbers, would that lure "others" who know about the hatch and can see the numbers from a remote computer to the Swan station? The castaways could stand ready with the guns and stake out any people who would possibly come to the Swan station.

BORING COMPUTER HISTORY ALERT
- SKIP IF NOT INTERESTED

The Radio Shack TRS-80 went on sale in 1977. It was made up of components - A keyboard, a black and white 12" monitor and a tape recorder. Yep, Tape Recorder. It came with 4K rom and 4K ram memory with built-in "basic" and cost about $500. Around 1980 Radio Shack introduced a hard drive that was physically large and hefty. It was a 5 Meg HD and was sold for $1,500. Also around that time they offered a floppy disk drive priced at $500. The floppy disks was 5 1/4"

At that point Radio Shack offered something called TRS-DOS to run the floppy drives. You will notice in the caves they are running off of these large tape machines that Michael was tinkering with.

We may assume that the computer is running a program and the prompt is not the operating system but part of the program.

During the 70's universities were linked in a way which evolved into the INTERNET. Although the systems were primitive they were able to type messages to others linked to the system. They also used green screens like the one shown in the bunker. I think they were programmed using paper tape or punch cards.


Sorry to be so boring.

So what I am trying to say the C:> prompt was not really familiar until the mid '80s most home computers had 2 floppy drives which were labelled A and B or for Radio Shack 0 and 1.

They forgot to download the service packs for the hatch computer.

Awesome info, Bruce.

As far as 'dropped the punchcard' stories, how about this:

I know own an Mp3 player the size of a stack of three credit cards. I bought it this year. It holds 4 gigabytes of data.

My old laptop, bought new in 2000, had a 6 GB hard drive.

It still trips me out sometimes that I have a 100 GB hard drive in my 2005 laptop, and even that's not considered 'big' anymore.

Which brings me to my next point: Wouldn't the hatch terminal have to be connected to something like the Internet, anyway? Sure, that's a lot of machine running behind it, but whatever program or algorithm it's running has to take up a significant amount of space.

quote:

EnderWiggin
Senior Member
Posted 05 December 2005 05:46 AM
Awesome info, Bruce.

As far as 'dropped the punchcard' stories, how about this:

I know own an Mp3 player the size of a stack of three credit cards. I bought it this year. It holds 4 gigabytes of data.

My old laptop, bought new in 2000, had a 6 GB hard drive.

It still trips me out sometimes that I have a 100 GB hard drive in my 2005 laptop, and even that's not considered 'big' anymore.

Which brings me to my next point: Wouldn't the hatch terminal have to be connected to something like the Internet, anyway? Sure, that's a lot of machine running behind it, but whatever program or algorithm it's running has to take up a significant amount of space.

The hatch terminal seems to be connected to the bigger machines that are along the wall (mainframe type machines)... If that is true, then the computer is a "dumb terminal" that is really the interface to the bigger machines and could communicate with other machines like it on a network, in other hatches or other locations...