Comment on Here’s why the best IMAX movies still need a Palm Pilot to work

ElectricTickles@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• lemmyvore@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Its job is to keep the QTRU moving at a consistent speed and to help keep the film’s video in sync with its audio.

  Why emulate a piece of PalmPilot software?

  the answer is simple: it works. And it’s not like it’s a booming industry in need of reinvention. There are only 30 theaters worldwide that can even show a full 70mm print like Oppenheimer, 19 of them in the US. Most IMAX experiences are digital now,

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• Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because nobody bothered to write the same software for more modern hardware. As long as it works, there’s no urgent need to upgrade. Eventually, it’s going to become hard to find hardware that can still run your ancient software, so at that point they’ll probably replace the whole things with a raspberry pi or something.

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  • DolphLundgren@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They’ve already replaced the hardware. The article shows a Palm Pilot emulator running on an iPad now.

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    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Oh they decided to emulated it then. Pretty neat. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. If you can kick the can down the road, go for it. Why do anything today that can also be ignored tomorrow.

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      • wjrii@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I have a seen a lot of systems where the interface is some ancient text-based thing running in a virtual machine on a random modern(ish) PC. I guess the funny thing here is that they even included a static photo of the physical device framing the emulated display so it would be more obviously a continuation. Maybe that's just a function of whatever emulator they adapted, but it's interesting.

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• FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  As the article says- because it just works.

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  • cheezoid2@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    But say just for examples sake we didn’t read the article - what would a quick summary of why exactly palm pilots are relevant to iMax entail?

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    • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It takes two paragraphs to explain it in the article because IMAX is really complicated. The important thing is that it’s mainly a monitoring device and projectionists usually just have to leave it alone and let it do its thing.

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      • cheezoid2@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Cool, actually very interesting. Thanks for the summary!

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    • Overzeetop@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The article doesn't actually say what is does, just that it's function is to ensure the loading of film occurs at a constant speed which, it is implied, keeps the audio in sync. It doesn't say how it does it, how it's connected, or whether it has a true control function or is just a monitoring device which is used by the projectionist to make alterations (using another part of the system) should the operation de-sync. The only operator they talked to claims to neve have interacted with the device.

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      • cheezoid2@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Thank you, that is a very concise ELI5-style explanation of the original “if it ain’t broke” summation.

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