deskthority

These are screenshots from two episodes of Knight Rider, the earliest of which has a filming date of August 1982, so we know that this can't be any newer than that. Chances are, they are from the 70s though.







The more I researched, the more I thought it gave me a Honeywell vibe, but it was because of vague keycap shapes and general shapes of the CRT chassis seems to remind me of the shape/form of other Honeywell terminals of the day that we can see at
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/honeywell/terminal/

But in reality, I have no idea...but I would really like to find out!

Unfortunately, these are the best pictures I can provide, and I only wish that some physical evidence of these machines survived.

Thanks, everyone!

EDIT: There are pics on the internet of this same keyboard being mis-matched with an IBM 3277 terminal, and that terminal has been well identified already. It's the mystery keyboard, and the more "trapezoidal" mystery terminal that we are most interested in identifying...just to avoid that confusion/tangent thanks!

https://entrex480.blogspot.com/p/ibm-32 ... -1972.html

I don't know, but it's funny that they also used it with a IBM 3270, with like a fucking monitor inside the monitor?

The Commodore PET had a trapezoidal display very similar to that one, but from looking at some PET pictures, it's definitely not a PET.

Surfing through Google Images I found quite a few trapezoidal terminals, but they were all one-piece units with integral keyboards. No joy from Yandex Images either.

webwit wrote: 08 Dec 2024, 16:58 I don't know, but it's funny that they also used it with a IBM 3270, with like a fucking monitor inside the monitor?

Yes, exactly. Good eye, thank you, webwit. That's why I added this at the bottom of my original post:

MightyFrame wrote: 08 Dec 2024, 07:03 EDIT: There are pics on the internet of this same keyboard being mis-matched with an IBM 3277 terminal, and that terminal has been well identified already. It's the mystery keyboard, and the more "trapezoidal" mystery terminal that we are most interested in identifying...just to avoid that confusion/tangent thanks!

https://entrex480.blogspot.com/p/ibm-32 ... -1972.html

Ah, now, if only the keyboard and the "original" terminal was recognizable to anyone...it could end up being the biggest unsolved mystery of the entire show!


The mystery lives on!

Thanks, everyone!

Believe it or not, a lot of the computer stuff (anything "high tech", basically) in a lot of those old shows were... cardboard. There were companies that supplied them to dress sets. Most of them are in the real estate industry now, providing cardboard models of home furnishings to dress empty houses for photo shoots. In the early 1980s computer equipment was still expensive, and had to be rented, taken care of, and returned, while the cardboard models were just thrown away when they were done with them. Saved a bunch of money and hassle.

Those are really clear images though, and they terminal looks real to me.

Forum glitch; dupe.

AndyJ wrote: 09 Dec 2024, 00:14 Believe it or not, a lot of the computer stuff (anything "high tech", basically) in a lot of those old shows were... cardboard. There were companies that supplied them to dress sets. Most of them are in the real estate industry now, providing cardboard models of home furnishings to dress empty houses for photo shoots. In the early 1980s computer equipment was still expensive, and had to be rented, taken care of, and returned, while the cardboard models were just thrown away when they were done with them. Saved a bunch of money and hassle.

Those are really clear images though, and they terminal looks real to me.

Indeed, yes, thank you, AndyJ. I agree, this is a real terminal somewhere...and I even believe that as we see it in the 2nd photo, it is actually working displaying real text (albeit with the raster turned up too high, but hey, they did that back then to show the computer is "on").

Holy shiftkey, batman...I think I may have found it!

Check it out: https://genesisoneg77.blogspot.com/p/ge ... inal.html

Anyone ever hear of the Genesis One G-77? Well NOW you have!

Thanks everyone here for the discussion...it helped lead me to this place!

Great find! Business must have been tight at the knight rider foundation. The beggars had to use a cheap IBM terminal clone.

webwit wrote: 09 Dec 2024, 22:53 Great find! Business must have been tight at the knight rider foundation. The beggars had to use a cheap IBM terminal clone.

Ha! Yes, indeed!!!! And thank you!