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by erlkonig 1367 days ago
Amusingly, that UI in the film is a real piece of Unix software named FSN on IRIX; I used it some around 1994 on Silicon Graphics hosts at Origin Games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)

3 comments

There's a version for OpenGL called fsv, and I made an updated version that works on a somewhat modern Linux system (Gtk+3, core OpenGL 3.x) at https://github.com/jabl/fsv
Yes, I remember that it became available after the movie.. and I tried it and found it completely useless in practice. I don't think a single programmer at our company liked it and it was soon forgotten. Did anyone here get some use out of it? I seem to remember that part of the problem was that it didn't seem to work as well or efficiently as the movie showed it.
I did exactly the same thing and had a similar experience.

I think this is broadly applicable to most, probably all stylized movie user interfaces. Minority Report, Tron and Star Trek come to mind. They look really cool on the big screen and are inspiring but once you get home and try to actually use something like it in real life for something productive and it's an impediment more than an inspiration.

IMHO depending on the implementation LCARS (Star Trek - Federation) type interfaces can be pretty fun and enjoyable to use.

Pity that Paramount says not to do so and pulls DMCAs right and left.

As I mention in a sibling comment, I made an updated version that works on a modern Linux system (https://github.com/jabl/fsv ), but, uh, useful? Nope, it's a gimmick or a toy, not something you'd actually use to increase your productivity.
I also used it, a relative had one for their startup. There were dozens of us at least!