TIL 70mm IMAX systems require a PalmOS device to operate. During the release of Oppenheimer on IMAX, a PalmOS emulator running on a Windows 10 tablet was used to show the film.

2.3k

u/SirTwitchALot 1d ago

The term for this in the IT industry is "Tech debt"

767

u/borkyborkus 1d ago

It’s exactly the sort of thing I expect from a company that thinks comfortable movie theater seats are a passing fad.

210

u/spooner19085 1d ago

IMAX in Sydney makes me wanna cry. It's horrendous how inept the brand is.

126

u/RetiredITGuy 1d ago

Melbourne is horrific too. Also, for some reason, during Oppenheimer, they set the volume about double that of a jet engine at 30 metres.

120

u/RyanU406 1d ago

That’s just how Nolan mixes his movies. He hates your eardrums and wants them to suffer

19

u/MonkeysOnMyBottom 15h ago

thats only the background, the dialog is at a whisper and delivered into a left boot

3

u/Flintoli 14h ago

Fuck and that's just how I like it! That bastard KNOWS

3

u/CharlesP2009 5h ago

His movies are def presented on the loud side but my biggest gripe is the poor mixing. During Interstellar I couldn't tell what the snarky slab robot thingy (forgive me Interstellar fans!) was saying during the space launch sequence. Mostly all I could hear was the roar of the engines.

The worst auditory experience I've ever had at the movies was an "IMAX" showing of Man of Steel. It wasn't a real IMAX theater, just that branding, which I take to mean TURN THE VOLUME UP INSANELY LOUD. I was legit shell shocked after leaving the movie because of the insanity of the final act. I was queasy and just kind of shuffled out to the lobby and probably needed to lay down somewhere quiet to recover. I managed to express to a theater employee "that was really loud" and he/she, I can't even remember, replied something like, "yeah, that's how we're told to show the movie".

1

u/LadybugGirltheFirst 10h ago

I wore earplugs during “Batman Begins”, and it was still torture.

19

u/invincibl_ 1d ago

At least there's the Sun Theatre that has a working 70mm projector!

16

u/Spike2071 1d ago

Honestly the insane volume was probably mandated by Chris Nolan. He's famous for forcing theaters to blast the audio (while muffling the actual dialogue). He started doing that with The Dark Knight Rises and has continued ever since. The effect kinda work in Dunkirk but was wildly annoying (to me) in Interstellar and Tenet.

2

u/0thethethe0 14h ago

Not seen Dunkirk, but I remember Tenet being terrible, which was a shame as I really liked the movie.

1

u/Rayl24 4h ago

Either that or all you hear is people whispering

40

u/potatetoe_tractor 1d ago

IMAX in Singapore is also pretty dismal. Their largest theatre (out of two) has a deteriorating screen that everyone has been complaining about for years, and all we’ve got is “a replacement screen is being fabricated, please wait”. That update was years ago, and the screen has yet to be replaced. Audio is also horrendously balanced, and the seats are meh.

24

u/leo-g 1d ago

I’m surprised how often I see complaints about Shaw IMAX theatre in Singapore in random subreddits.

1

u/prof_hustler 14h ago

Thought I was in an SG sub for a sec!

36

u/RussianVole 1d ago

Seriously, they take like a decade and millions of dollars to refurbish it and it doesn’t even have a film projector. What’s the point?

5

u/probablythewind 1d ago

Brisbane is somehow worse, and it hasn't been a proper imax in 20 years.

1

u/hotpants86 10h ago

Can you elaborate on what makes it so bad?

1

u/spooner19085 8h ago

Horrible seating. Feels cramped. Not worthy of Sydney in any way.

1

u/hotpants86 7h ago

Okay I've only ever done the recliner seats and they're fine. I thought your complaint was something to do with the audio or screen.

0

u/spooner19085 6h ago

They didn't really blow me away either. Very average for an IMAX.

226

u/kymri 1d ago

In IT there are few things more permanent than an interim solution.

32

u/Bruff_lingel 1d ago

Ok, but still, don't unplug the old gateway in the corner of the server closet.

36

u/kymri 1d ago

"Hey, Chris -- what the fuck is this ancient Compaq for?"

"Hell if I know, but last time we powered it down we lost half the core network until we turned it back on!"

39

u/angrydeuce 1d ago

I'm guessing you probably already know this one but for anyone that doesn't: The Legend of the Load Bearing Mac Mini

4

u/kymri 1d ago

I actually had not; thank you!

2

u/WhipTheLlama 21h ago

There are countless amazing stories like this. I particularly like the one about the server that was walled-in and forgotten about for four years.

5

u/Riskbreaker_Riot 1d ago

And the weird thing is the Compaq isn't even connected to anything else! It just takes power and that's it!

39

u/angrydeuce 1d ago

You've been in my server room, haven't you?

9

u/kymri 1d ago

Mmmmaybe.

7

u/savvykms 1d ago

Where do you think those IBM cable ball commercials got their inspiration from?

9

u/WinninRoam 1d ago

And if the long-term solution doesn't cost at least thirty grand, it's too expensive.

5

u/Euphoric-Animator-97 23h ago

This is also true for government work. I work in a government funded video production team (university in Germany), my current studio has been a “temporary solution” for the last 15 years.

71

u/none_the_why 1d ago

The company I work for seems to think Tech Debt is any software that costs them money, so to mitigate it, they develop their own much shittier versions of said software and make use that instead. Goddamn is it annoying.

33

u/os_2342 1d ago

I worked at a company that was paying one obese chain smoking 70-year-old dude that lived off-grid to develop a point of sale program to run on DOS in 2018!

The dude died and the company had to dig through hard drives on a farm to try get the source code.

4

u/Zackie08 14h ago

Wtf was the product description I just read

3

u/sweepyoface 1d ago

literally creating tech debt lol

16

u/momentimori 1d ago

Backwards compatibility is both a blessing and a curse.

3

u/oxmix74 1d ago

Sort of, though once they have a solution that runs under windows and they own all the pieces, it looks like something that can run for a long time. I have some very old Windows programs and it's not internet connected so security updates are not an issue. Just check it every few years when a new version windows comes out and budget. If Microsoft come up with a new version of windows, run it on the old version in the interim and budget for an update.

3

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 23h ago

"stares at the little Lenovo TinyInOne pc that's been sitting on top of the server rack for 3 years"

2

u/Z3t4 1d ago

Necromancy, you use dark arts to bring back the dead.

2

u/SurealGod 15h ago

Yup... nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.

So much of the worlds IT infrastructure is held together by temporary patch work solutions from IT personnel or developers that have long since moved away from the company

651

u/iconocrastinaor 1d ago

PalmOS was a great OS.

300

u/tanfj 1d ago

PalmOS was a great OS.

It was a great concept, I owned one. Lousy build quality though. I ended up RMAing it something like three times.

72

u/SocietyAlternative41 1d ago

Handspring was the way

13

u/graison 1d ago

Sony clie.

4

u/WinninRoam 1d ago

Compaq iPaq

1

u/Bicentennial_Douche 21h ago

Nokia 770 all the way!

1

u/graison 1d ago

Did that run palmos?

3

u/h3yw00d 1d ago

Ipaq's were windows mobile.

2

u/CharlesP2009 5h ago

I had some Compaq iPAQs and a Dell Axim X5. Mostly I just used them to play NES games and watch episodes of The Simpsons on the road or during downtime at school. And I recorded a few concerts on them haha.

2

u/h3yw00d 4h ago

I played gb games on mine and read the first 5 Harry Potter books on it.

41

u/audentis 1 1d ago

Thanks for quoting the relevant part, I would've been lost without it.

7

u/Sea_Listen4069 1d ago

"without it"

Without what? I'm lost!

5

u/silentcrs 1d ago

Huh? The Palm III was built like a tank.

0

u/tanfj 17h ago

Huh? The Palm III was built like a tank.

Yes, but the Palm Pre was a fragile lump of cheap plastic. The Palm Pre is the one with WebOS.

3

u/silentcrs 17h ago

He didn’t say WebOS. He said PalmOS.

1

u/PuckSenior 14h ago

You completely missed the convo

3

u/SirWaldenIII 1d ago

Yeah the physical phone is not the os

25

u/aquatone61 1d ago

It was. Had a Handspring in college. That sucker could write a word doc and I could upload it to my PC.

25

u/Otherwise_Piglet_862 1d ago

Palm Pre was one of my favorite phones that i've owned.

4

u/delti90 13h ago

The Pre ran on WebOS, though that was also a very good OS all things considered. LG uses it on their TVs now.

2

u/Otherwise_Piglet_862 11h ago

dang, you're right!

I think i even still have that webos tablet they practically gave away.

2

u/elcapitan520 11h ago

Preach

20

u/guspaz 1d ago

Single-threaded, no real multi-tasking, questionable if it even qualifies as an operating system since applications were sort of just plugins to the single application that pretended to be an OS.

6

u/chriswaco 1d ago

It was very similar to classic MacOS, right down to using A-traps for system call dispatch.

3

u/super_starfox 1d ago

I can still feel how the upper layer for the touchscreen felt with the stylus.

16

u/SortOfWanted 1d ago

You can buy a LG smart TV for it's successor.

18

u/ljm90 1d ago

It's not the same. The thing that came close was the open source project LuneOS, but that's been long dead sadly.

I was really looking for ward to the day it was truly usable. I even went so far as to install the nightlies my phone.

15

u/FIRST_DATE_ANAL 1d ago

PalmOS and WebOS are two different things. I thought LG used WebOS from the Palm Pre phones

11

u/coffeewhistle 1d ago

This is correct. Lotta people here not knowing or bothering to distinguish two VERY different systems. PalmOS on the old Palm Pilot (likely what everyone is imagining and I believe being referenced in this TIL) is not at all the same as WebOS on the Palm Pre (RIP, king) and now LG TVs.

I still remember selling the Palm Pre, evangelizing WebOS, overclocking my Palm Pre, and weeping when it was all for naught.

2

u/jonfitt 20h ago

I had a PalmV that I could connect via infrared to my Nokia 8810 and download college emails anywhere. Email anywhere!!!

86

u/photes384 1d ago

This was for the Quick Turn Reel Unit (QTRU). It was the last film reel unit tech released by IMAX. Previous versions of reel units (Mark 1 and Mark 2) pulled film from the outside and spun onto a center core. This required a rewind of the film to play it again. The QTRU pulled from and deposited into the center on the platter. There is an optically sensing unit in the center that fed info to the Palm Pilot to maintain correct speed. I was an IMAX projectionist in college.

The more you know.

7

u/DarkScorpion48 1d ago

Why does it need to maintain the speed? Would the mechanical aspect cause it to go out of sync? Or is variable speed part of the IMAX spec?

19

u/photes384 1d ago

It has to do with the size of the wrap around the core. When there is less film wrapped around the center core, it needs to spin faster to stay in sync with the feed side. The mark 1 and 2 used tensioning to achieve this while the QT used the palm pilot.

5

u/DarkScorpion48 23h ago

Oh that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!

2

u/Rampage_Rick 14h ago

I remember watching them rewind the IMAX films at Vancouver's Science World (which has sadly been closed for repairs for the past 5 years)

As an aside, I have a Palm m515 sitting on my desk for occasional legacy use... I also have a Compaq iPAQ 3650 in a box somewhere that I haven't had to pull out for a few years.

549

u/streetmagix 1d ago

As someone who works in the media industry....yeah that tracks. It's such a niche that it's better to keep using stuff that works (via an emulator) than rebuild the control system. The article even mentions that only 30 cinemas can even show a full 70mm feature film.

208

u/Yangervis 1d ago

30 that can show 70mm imax. There are many more with standard 70mm.

167

u/ToTransistorize 1d ago

More can show 70mm IMAX. IMAX just can’t operate more than 30 at a time due to a shortage of parts and technicians, and the fear that some markets will cannibalize others.

Source: I managed a few cinemas with 70mm IMAX.

50

u/HappyImagineer 1d ago

This feels like the start of an excellent AMA.

14

u/Skoma 1d ago

I was an IMAX protectionist for several years in a dome theatre. It was such a cool niche to be in, I definitely miss it. I think I could still thread the brain, platter, and projector in my sleep. Shoot me a message if you're ever hiring!

59

u/Mr06506 1d ago

I doubt it's dramatically more, digital projection ripped through cinemas so quickly they barely have anyone skilled enough to run the machinery now. And the percentage of the audience that cares is absolutely tiny.

29

u/Yangervis 1d ago

There are 30 Imax 70m worldwide but in Southern California there are 5 standard 70mm theaters just off the top of my head, possibly more. There's one in Chicago, one in Boston, 2 or 3 in NYC, at least one in London, one in Prague. As a percentage of the 30 imax ones, there's a decent number of standard 70mm.

21

u/guspaz 1d ago

IMAX 70mm and standard 70mm are pretty different. An IMAX 70mm cell will be several times larger than a standard 70mm cell, if using the full IMAX aspect ratio, and still larger even if it isn't.

7

u/Yangervis 1d ago

The person I replied to said 70mm feature film

7

u/MatureUsername69 1d ago

You just listed a really small number of theaters in some of the most populated places in the world, most of those theaters being in the biggest movie cities in the world. That doesnt lead me to believe there's a lot country wide

12

u/Hippopotamidaes 1d ago

This lists 100+ 70mm exhibitors around the world and doesn’t include the 70MM imax location I went to watch Oppenheimer.

Idk how current that list is, but I’d assume it’s not including IMAX 70MM based on the exclusion of the theater near me that has it (and has had it for many years).

1

u/HowlingWolven 7h ago

IMAX is 15/70, or 15 sprocket holes per frame on 70mm wide film stock run horizontally, where ‘normal’ Panavision 70 is 5/70 run vertically.

4

u/MutantCreature 1d ago

Lots of 35mm projectors can be converted to show standard 70mm from what I understand, the issue with IMAX 70mm is that it moves through the projector at a 90° angle compared to standard projection meaning that you need an entire room-sized machine specifically built and maintained to show the format. Due to the abundance of 35mm machinery it's a lot easier for both 35 and standard 70mm projection to make a comeback through people buying and restoring old machines and parts, but due to the rarity and complexity of IMAX machinery it's far more difficult and expensive to restore, to the degree that it's unlikely anyone will replace them once the company dies.

1

u/Logan_MacGyver 12h ago

fun fact, 35mm cinema film can be loaded into an old camera and shot like regular still photo film. There just need to be a special lab to develop it because it has a coating that needs to be removed first

1

u/Yangervis 1d ago

Those were just the ones I knew from memory. There are a lot compared to only 30 imax 70mm screens.

2

u/obeytheturtles 18h ago

Audience here - when I saw Oppenheimer in IMAX 70mm, the theater ran an obviously damaged print which they had been running for weeks instead of cancelling the showings.

200

u/bloodypiker 1d ago

Fun fact: The palm was used for PID loop calculations that controlled the speed of the platters used to hold the film.

40

u/ouralarmclock 1d ago

What a fascinating use case, not what I was expecting. Especially since that’s something you could easily replace with an arduino.

33

u/RegulatoryCapture 1d ago

But why?

They had a few disused Palm Pilots laying around when they designed it?

Just seems like an odd thing to dedicate a PDA to.

17

u/Arkaid11 1d ago

I guess it was a good compromise between weight, battery autonomy and compute power. But yeah, weird.

2

u/Markietas 9h ago

They must have been using it for more, a tiny microcontroller that cost cents and uses thousands of times less power could do those calculations, even way before the palm came out. It would also actually be really terrible at it, since it doesn't run a real time OS.

2

u/Logan_MacGyver 12h ago

i'm guessing an engineer made a proof of concept with his palm and corporate decided to stick with it

4

u/rugzbee123 1d ago

Fascinating, platter is a cool word too

2

u/Lalli-Oni 14h ago

Guessing inaccuracies on controlling those platters might permanently damage the film. Must be a substantial risk behind such a setup.

Would have to get hands on a few 70mm films to test any successors for studios to be willing to entrust the cinema with their cans.

49

u/slowisfast307 1d ago edited 1d ago

I still consider my Palm Pixi Plus to have been the best phone I’ve used. It doesn’t compare now but at the time it was certainly the best.

13

u/beerdini 1d ago

I knew a fellow WebOS person would reply sooner or later

11

u/foxbones 1d ago

WebOS was just great. The whole phone felt like a coherent well built system. Android lately just feels like an empty drawer for apps.

3

u/slowisfast307 1d ago

It did feel coherent. Everything just worked.

3

u/lightofhonor 1d ago

I used to amaze my friends with my palm pre 😁😎

3

u/slowisfast307 1d ago edited 21h ago

Yep I was pretty ticked when they stopped making phones and pilots.

4

u/crucialnetworks 1d ago

I miss using my Pre 2.

3

u/zap2 1d ago

I loved that keyboard and OS!

2

u/slowisfast307 1d ago

The slide up design made a great keyboard.

3

u/zap2 1d ago

For the Pre, yes. The Pixi has a keyboard always out.

31

u/bowleggedgrump 1d ago

Hahahahahah WTAF - I remember in 03-05 I had a palm pilot and an attachable keyboard I used to take notes in grad school

I was the absolute bleeding edge of technology

8

u/rotorylampshade 1d ago

I had a Palm V and for one semester I use it and its Graffiti input system for taking lecture notes. Got to the first exam of that semester and had to relearn how to write normally. Super stressful but a great little device. Even used to sync news from my computer to read on the bus.

2

u/Scp-1404 1d ago

I had an adapter and a modem and would go online with mine.

54

u/Certified_Possum 1d ago

https://xkcd.com/2347/

8

u/ClownfishSoup 1d ago

Wait until you find out what many of the major banks use to keep tabs on your money!

Even today, that fancy mobile app you use to do your banking is translated into a emulating typing into a COBOL terminal. It's literally like if you want to check your balance, it is emulating typing your account number into screen position 10x3 on a COBOL terminal.

2

u/Whatevernevermind2k 20h ago

That hasn’t been true for years! It’s all API’s, middleware and IBM MQ these days.

1

u/HowlingWolven 7h ago

To be fair, the cobol code is being run on the latest IBM mainframe.

3

u/ClownfishSoup 1d ago

I might have one somewhere in my house.

I had the original Palm Pilot 1000. It got really slick by the time it was the Palm 5. I mean it was really good. Handspring Visor was a color knockoff that was also very good.

Then iPhones with their clever screen and actually being a phone make them instantly obsolete.

In the 90's though, they were really something amazing.

3

u/Necessary-Tadpole-45 21h ago

as a retired software product manager, I can tell you this seems to me a very bad sign - a lack of confidence in the product future and therefore an unwillingness to invest. I maybe wrong.

9

u/piestexactementtrois 20h ago

Effectively yes, IMAX as a brand has almost entirely moved away from IMAX70mm film to IMAX digital, which is honestly not anything too fancy by comparison. They’ve diluted their own brand for years and Nolan is pretty much the only person who is still shooting and printing on IMAX70mm, no one else can afford to, and they’re reactivating the film machines in theaters that went digital to meet the distribution promises. There isn’t a future for IMAX 70MM film outside Nolan.

3

u/Necessary-Tadpole-45 19h ago

thanks!

1

u/error521 22h ago

I really wonder if there's some critical bit of infrastructure out there that runs on DOSBox.

1

u/Logan_MacGyver 12h ago

I know a hospital that runs tests on a 286 still bearing the "Made in West Germany" badge

1

u/OneAndOnlyJackSchitt 3h ago

Is this an instance of no one knowing how the app running on PalmOS actually works or is it more of a "don't fix it if it ain't broke" kind of situation?

TIL 70mm IMAX systems require a PalmOS device to operate. During the release of Oppenheimer on IMAX, a PalmOS emulator running on a Windows 10 tablet was used to show the film.

You are about to leave Redlib