[jamespullar]

Why is IMAX running a software emulation of hardware from two decades ago?

“The original Quick Turn Reel Units operated on Palm Pilots. In advance of the release of Oppenheimer, IMAX Engineering designed and manufactured an emulator that mimics the look and feel of a Palm Pilot to keep it simple and familiar for IMAX film projectionists,” an IMAX spokesperson told Motherboard.

The article quotes an IMAX spokesperson directly, explaining how and why this was done.

[tivert]

> The original Quick Turn Reel Units operated on Palm Pilots.

I also found this that describes what those are:

https://www.sciencestation.org/projector.htm:

> Combine this with the theatre's "quick turn reel" that allows the film to be replayed without being rewound and you have the world's most sophisticated film projection system.

So the role it plays in the production process is to control some kind of film handling machine.

[lelandfe]

For reference, the original article: https://web.archive.org/web/20230719170249/https://www.vice....

> Why is IMAX running a software emulation of hardware from two decades ago? IMAX didn’t immediately return Motherboard’s request for comment for an explanation, but such things are more common than you’d think. It’s probable that the IMAX hardware ran on a piece of PalmOS-based software, and it did its job well enough that there was never a need to change.