Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "jack" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc Subject: Re: DEC and The Americans Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2016 05:48:06 +1100 Lines: 35 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net Wac2HhNVC/QNY7LQQIjCpwPbjTUPYPj9sJe8mq2xg3IJ9/ApE= Cancel-Lock: sha1:QSc9fmSCYMQZpFAp25wgIgZJPZI= In-Reply-To: X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Importance: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Windows Live Mail 14.0.8117.416 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V14.0.8117.416 Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:157644 comp.misc:10126 "Michael Black" wrote in message news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1601251056460.9361@darkstar.example.org... > On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, RS Wood wrote: > >> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1] If you're >> not, I can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982 >> Washington DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off. >> >> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian >> embassy to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a >> lot of prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks. >> >> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the >> terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the >> desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the >> VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the >> show. >> > But could the Soviets buy DEC computers? I thought at least some computer > stuff was restricted in where it could be sold. And even if not, buying > outside of the USSR meant needing "hard currency", which I thought was > often lacking. They had to spend it on the important things. Its far from clear that they would have thought anything else was more important. Certainly Putin himself was involved in that sort of stuff a bit later than that 85-90, in embassies outside the USSR, in his case mostly in Germany. Dunno about access to DEC minis tho. The program may well have used those instead of the russian clones of them just because there aren't any clones available to use to even do a decent mockup of those, so used real VT100s instead.