The Best IMAX Movies Still Need a Palm Pilot To Work (theverge.com) 67
Ahead of the Oppenheimer release, IMAX's TikTok showed the massive 70mm film print and special IMAX extensions. The video interestingly featured an emulated Palm m130, commonly known as a Palm Pilot, a 2002 device running on a Motorola 33MHz DragonBall VZ processor and Palm OS 4.1. From a report: In an IMAX theater, the m130's job is to control the quick turn reel unit, or QTRU for short. (For many years, it appears, a non-emulated m130 sat holstered in most theaters.) The QTRU's job is to control the platters, which are those large horizontal shelves where all of a film's many reels are stitched together, stored, and then quickly spun out to and from the projector. The IMAX 1570 projector moves film at a little under six feet per second, so it's all happening really fast.
The m130 is apparently crucial to keeping the thing humming -- "PALM PILOT MUST BE ON ALL THE TIME," reads a notice above an image of a different m130 that has since been passed around the internet -- but doesn't often need to be used. "I've never had to interact with the Palm Pilot," says one person familiar with the technology. "It's really just a status screen." Its job is to keep the QTRU moving at a consistent speed and to help keep the film's video in sync with its audio.
The m130 is apparently crucial to keeping the thing humming -- "PALM PILOT MUST BE ON ALL THE TIME," reads a notice above an image of a different m130 that has since been passed around the internet -- but doesn't often need to be used. "I've never had to interact with the Palm Pilot," says one person familiar with the technology. "It's really just a status screen." Its job is to keep the QTRU moving at a consistent speed and to help keep the film's video in sync with its audio.
Four lines (Score:2)
Four lines in and the headline is untrue.
And I'm on mobile.
But, hey, PalmOS won't install any system updates to break your app, so that's good.
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I guess it depends on if you consider a virtual Palm Pilot a Palm Pilot.
Is a virtual server a server?
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Re: Four lines (Score:2)
I heard that Amazon has a Palm Pilot program for their stores. I am wondering how many Palm Pilots will be needed/sold?
Figures (Score:2)
Doesn't help that tech moves at lightspeed and really should fucking slow down.
Dagnabit! (Score:2)
OldManYellsAtCloud.gif
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But most things suck and the new things are just as bad or worse.
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I will be only 36 in Oct.
That's ANCIENT in lightspeed-years. (I'm screaming up on mid-40s faster than I care to admit)
Why would want to spend any money to update to be useful for modern things?
Because eventually the one guy who knows where that one obscure-but-critical piece of the Rube Goldberg device lives will quit maintaining it. Then a couple weeks later we'll see a story on Slashdot about how every IMAX theater in the country could only watch half of a movie because they couldn't figure out where some random dude from Nebraska fucked-off to, and their platter switcher controller emulator won't work
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I will be only 36 in Oct.
So you're only 30 in base 10?
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Have you read this perfect quote from Douglas Adams? Do you see you just jumped into zone 3?
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’r
IMAX laser no more FILM! (Score:2)
IMAX laser no more FILM!
Re: IMAX laser no more FILM! (Score:2)
Film is still largely superior no matter what
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Film is still largely superior no matter what
No. Film has a benefit of non-linear saturation for recording and high resolution for playback. That is all. By far the best viewing experience would be to take a 15/70 IMAX film and digitise it for playback colour graded to a laser projector that can provide significantly richer colour and contrast than film was ever capable of.
Nolan did a good job shooting this in 15/70, but shining a light through it while it spins is not the "superior" way of watching a movie.
can the Film system be hooked to better sound? (Score:2)
can the Film system be hooked to better sound? as with IMAX it's on it's own system with just an time code sync?
can IMAX play the IMAX laser sound system?
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The resolution of IMAX laser is terribly lower than IMAX film, way lower. Thats why Oppenheimer was FILMED on film. There is a reason Nolan is such a big user of film and IMax film and a reason why Nolans movies are allways the best and get him practically any money he needs to FILM anything.
So see it properly, on film and have your eyballs amazed at the massivley higher detail.
I mean a 40 Megapixel camera might just approach the estimated top end of 35mm film, Imax is much bigger than that. Even films ma
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We saw it on IMAX yesterday and the experience was underwhelming. I could literally see pixels in some scenes and we had tearing in action scenes. This article got me researching the tech being it and I discovered that most IMAX theaters are actually far from the full IMAX and even less actually have a 1570 projector.
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What you saw was probably digital IMAX. Which is a nice system, but it doesn't measure up to the film version of IMAX. The film version uses 15 performations worth of 70mm film, giving it 3 times the area of standard 70mm film which uses five perforations. (The image is rotated 90 degrees from the orientation used on other movie film standards.) That in turn has about 3.5 times the area of 35mm film. That level of resolution is unmatched by any digital system in common use for filmmaking.
There are only thir
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Correct, digital IMAX on the small screen, i.e. liemax. Not even the laser projector, xenon.
Full list here: https://www.imax.com/news/oppe... [imax.com]
Re: Figures (Score:2)
If they did it today they'd do it with a raspberry pi or an arduino. Or any of the pic24s or pic32s that run at 40mhz. In fact, if they did it in the 80s they would have used an off the shelf microcontroller too. Late 90s was the weird blip where the palm had all the right bits in a package.
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It works! Why would want to spend any money to update to be useful for modern things? That would cost money and we are quite happy with the jank.
Doesn't help that tech moves at lightspeed and really should fucking slow down.
Considering its only job is to keep the speed steady and consistent, how much advanced "technology" do you think they need? It's not about the money. They don't need anything fancy.
As always, the simpler something is, the fewer problems it will have. Case in point, when was the last time you had a light switch, the kind you flip up and down, go bad? Maybe once in all your decades of existence, if you're lucky. The same here. Simple is what works. No need to overcomplicate things.
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The problem with relying on this particular software on this particular device is that it's all still massively more complicated than the light switch in your example.
It would frankly have made more sense to have figured out how to make it work in some kind of assembler that could be baked-in to an IC that is batch-produced in moderate quantities in production runs on an as-needed basis, without relying on a third party's OS and hardware. This would allow new IMAX projectors requiring this feature to just
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We have a couple of light switches at my work that have failed, they are about 10 years old.
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I think it's more interesting they used a Palm Pilot in the first place. Lots of engineers will sneer at things like using a Raspberry Pi, but if you can leverage someone else's mass production, why not?
If it works... (Score:2)
...don't fix it!
Emulation for the win. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an ideal use of emulation of old devices and platforms. There's no reason or purpose to replace the original software or port it directly to something new. It just worked. But the hardware is long gone, so emulation is clearly the best way to do it. Some may call that technical debt, but I disagree, given that emulation works just fine.
There are other examples of emulation that fills a niche, including the modern Soyuz capsules emulating the user interface hardware and software of the 1960s spacecraft with a screen and more modern computer. Also there was the HP 50G calculator which emulated the saturn CPU in software they could continue running their tried and true calculator software on a more modern and available CPU.
Re: Emulation for the win. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: Emulation for the win. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a solution that works, but the hardware is antiquated. Setting up an emulator and having it work with the original binary means unless the emulator is buggy, it's probably going to work. And PalmOS emulators are very mature at this point in time.
Your solution requires re-engineering the entire thing.
The reason for the emulator is that there aren't many 70mm IMAX releases - maybe once a year at most. I don't think there's much incentive to invent new hardware to replace the existing unit, develop new software, validate and test the software, etc. Plus, it's controlling valuable property - those 70mm film aren't cheap - you're looking at probably $50-100,000 worth of movie there. So if a bug causes problems with the reels it could destroy something quite valuable.
It's also good to remember that only 30 copies were ever printed.
So it's one of those things where there's no real reason to improve on it (the number of 70mm IMAX cinemas is decreasing), no real desire to resurrect old source code for something that is only going to be used rarely.
Re: Emulation for the win. (Score:2)
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> Can we guarantee the emulator will remain bug free with new architectures and operating systems
Yes, we do it all the time in IT.
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The magic engineering term that everyone is casting about for is "Non-Recurring Effort" (NRE). This is work that has to go into a product no matter how many units you produce. The marginal cost of software is practically zero, so what's left is development NRE and maintenance.
The emulator has a larger user base than the IMAX software (as a lower bound we know it can't be smaller) so the development NRE can be amortized across more customers.
Integrated electronics hardware is mostly, but not completely, NRE,
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There's no reason not to assume the emulator will remain bug free, or at least as bug free as it is now. Plus these bugs are not going to be a security risk as bugs often are in most other contexts and use cases.
Besides, modern OS's and applications are layer upon layer of abstraction and you seem to think that's okay. Why not consider the PalmOS emulator an abstraction layer, or an API and ABI in its own right?
You're making the claim that this is technical debt, but I argue completely rebuilding the thi
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You cant just re-write the software in python etc without investing all the development time and costs in doing so.
The original software has already been designed and tested, that investment has already been spent. Walking in to re-do all of that will take many hundreds of man-hours, you'd have to train up on the problem domain, draw out the functional specification, interview the stakeholders, define all of the use cases (which requires a full study of the original program and associated hardware, you can
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It gets worst here: IMAX, but without even the laser projector. Using xenon projector. Abysmal quality.
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millions of lines of C
Good God, man. How complex do you think emulators are?! A simple emulation system like this could easily be less than few thousand lines of code.
Odd (Score:2)
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It feeds from the center of the reel. IMAX runs film very fast (it's 15 perfs wide and nothing feeds by using the perfs as it would shred the film).
The projectionist "diddles" the start of the film then sticks on the "gizmo" that feeds the film from the center out. It's threaded through the projector and through various rollers, then into the takeup reel. This way the f
Re: Odd (Score:2)
How misleading can we be? (Score:5, Informative)
2) It does not need a Palm Pilot. It needs to run a program which runs on PalmOS. It does not need the actual Palm Pilot.
3) Palm had dropped "Pilot" well before the m130 came out, though admittedly in TFA they address this
I'll probably come up with more things, but that's what I have for now. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's cool. But they didn't need to put a stupid headline on it.
Re:How misleading can we be? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just another advertisement for the Oppenheimer movie. Since people subconsciously block ads now, the best form of advertisements currently is the thinly veiled ad disguised as an informative article.
You can look forward to more and more of this crap as the internet works around trends now. And since websites (and soon AIs) feed on each others' content, expect constant hype cycle manufacturing around the most mundane junk.
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A Nolan movie needs no advertisement other than the name Nolan sureley?
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1) Nothing to do with the "best movies". It's about the (arguably) best way of *viewing* *any* IMAX movie
The word "best" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The 15/70 format played back through a film projector offers without question the highest *resolution* viewing experience. But that's it. After colour grading a digital project can offer far better colour and contrast than the 15/70 format. In my opinion the *best* viewing will be on an IMAX digital laser projector because IMHO the resolution is already good enough, and the colour fidelity and improved contrast ratio makes a significant different.
IMAX lost source? (Score:3)
Why would they emulate an entire platform instead of working with the program's source code and adding compatibility for new platforms? Did IMAX lose the source?
This method of supporting old devices seems like it would become exponentially more difficult with each iteration.
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Why would they emulate an entire platform instead of working with the program's source code and adding compatibility for new platforms?
Because it works, and rewrites likely to introduce some new bug. No need to "fix" something that works fine for its purpose.
Did IMAX lose the source?
This method of supporting old devices seems like it would become exponentially more difficult with each iteration.
I suspect once they have the emulation down on a relatively new platform they'll be ok for a long time.
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Not all IMAX cinemas even support the 70mm film format any more. They've moving to digital laser projection using frequency domain multiplexing for 3D.
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I can rewrite simple control apps with only some 68K PalmOS binaries to go from. I could target PC, Mac, Linux, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, FreeRTOS, whatever you want. It wouldn't even take me that long to do. Of course, it is unlikely paying for my services is going to be worth it for IMAX Corporation compared to setting up an off-the-shelf emulator. I'm just too expensive.
Re: IMAX lost source? (Score:2)
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I use a 68K emulator (v86k, it's not for Palm) and it hasn't been updated in years, my copy still builds fine. There is xCopilot for Palm emulation which needs a lot of TLC to compile but it does eventually work if you clean up the nasty C code or use an older compiler. PHEM for Android is still kicking around, and theoretically you can run its Java-based implementation on anything for decades. And something web-based like Cloud Pilot [github.io] will probably work for another 5-10 years.
I think that I get your point.
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IMAX is replacing the 70mm film projectors with digital laser projectors. The whole system is on life support anyway. In a decade, there probably won't be any cinemas left using this setup.
Re:IMAX lost source? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would they emulate an entire platform instead of working with the program's source code and adding compatibility for new platforms? Did IMAX lose the source?
This method of supporting old devices seems like it would become exponentially more difficult with each iteration.
Because the job of software isn't to run on the latest platform, it's to deliver functionality without bugs.
Since an emulator accomplishes that while "working with the program's source code" introduces cost (custom software is $$) and creates new bugs the right call may be to stick with the emulator.
Wait until you've got a reason to rewrite, like you've got new projectors or need some important new feature. Until then don't break what isn't broken.
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They may have never had the source.
Sonos for example had a whole range of audio devices turn into li-ion powered bricks over night simply because Apple released a new version of iOS that no longer supported 32 bit apps.
The app that controlled these devices was not made by Sonos and they had no claim over the app or it's source. The original developer would have needed to simply re-compile for 64bit and publish but, they couldnt be bothered. Actually I think that Sonos simply had no link to teh developer a
Penny Wise Pound Foolish (Score:2)
Welcome to my world. Our org has perpetual "budget shortages" and thus doesn't spend on upgrades. Then when something old but important breaks down, everyone has to rush around like chickens with their heads cut off. They'll then fund upgrades to that *particular* app, usually at triple the cost to rush it.
But they still don't fund the *other* rotting apps/systems afterward. Turn-over is too high in management such that they probably are okay kicking the cans down road. If something bad happens, they were l
What did they do before PalmPilots? (Score:1)
IMAX has been around in some form or other since the Apollo era.
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That checks out... TIL that IMAX is super old.
The project to upgrade... (Score:2)
And ... (Score:2)
You all keep this in mind when "right to repair" is discussed and the manufacturer refuses to release source and CAN bus protocols.
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So disappointed... (Score:2)
Constantly on. (Score:2)
Yep, thereâ(TM)s a palm pilot. (Iâ(TM)m a former IMAX Projectionist.) itâ(TM)s always on because they never want to risk failure on power-up.
Thereâ(TM)s neither money nor interest in replacing them, especially now that weâ(TM)re down to 30 worldwide.
You all might want to consider the PPâ(TM)s success at handling the new, larger platters to accommodate Oppenheimer. That extra 10mins of capacity probably widens the momentum range by 50%. And yet, it still works.
My biggest concern
Christopher Nolan (Score:1)
Can he stop being obsessed with film? Time to ditch it and get into the 21st century. Nobody can tell the difference.
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A film user can always tell the difference.
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The digital rendering of Oppenheimer convinced me that there is indeed a difference.