Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by teh_klev 3998 days ago
Disney most likely took the name from the TRON command which is/was a debugging feature in BASIC [0]. The site itself also (whether conciously or not) make no mention of the movie. "Tron" could also be an shortening of "Electron" but without the hassle of an apostrophy, e.g. 'tron-club. I could be talking bollocks though :)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_command

3 comments

My favourite machine name is TIMTronic - ticket issuing machine electronic. It was a bus ticket machine made and sold by Almex control systems. It had 7 segment LED displays and mechanical keys and mechanical (not thermal) printer, and was huge. Bus drivers would push coins into them to short out the machine, thus allowing them to use hand-written emergency tickets which had much weaker auditing.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/calummelrose/8514115994

That Flickr account has some nice photos.

Our name comes from the word Mechatronics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechatronics
None of that matters if Disney's lawyers get bored :).
I hear Disney's lawyers are going after the descendants of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm because of the Grimm's use of Snow White and other Disney properties.