wargames2

I don’t have anything left from War Games except for the hideous crew jacket. It has been a while but I would be glad to try to help with questions. The last time I met with Mike was a few years ago when he was director of visual effects for Warner Bros. I am sure he is still busy, he would be willing to work in Canada. — Robert WilcoxDirector John Badham offered this insight into the film’s evolution: (http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/23/movie-gadget-friday-the-w-o-p-r-from-wargames/)11. As the Director of the film, I have my pawprints all over the script. One of these prints is the name “WOPR”. The original (and correct) name is SIOP for Single Integrated Operating Plan. This was truly boring and told you nothing. A good acronym should bear some mneumonic relation to what it stands for. For example in the Army Rifle Training Program they teach the acronym BRASS. This stands for Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze,Shoot.
Since the purpose of the computer was to deliver a knockout blow if needed to the enemy, the word “whop” as in hit or strike popped into my head. And I then adapted the word to stand for War Operation Plan Response. Of course I saw the resemblance to the Burger King product, but they would have had nothing to do with some warmongering device and would not have wanted to have any connection with the film.Posted at 7:36PM on Oct 24th 2004 by John BadhamIn late October of 2004 my attention was directed to a claim from a seemingly desperate David Sosna who stated that the IMSAI 8080 used in the Wargames film was his: 13. I designed the computer systems on the movie, unfortunately leaving for another film before I got to meet John Badham, the director. Later we worked together as Director and 1st Assistant Director, my day job, and became friends. As M Evans noted, there is a distinct similarity to what IBM called its “EAM Equipment” for electronic adding machine. The picture went to MGM after Universal refused to make it in more than 45 days. MGM had an incredibly antiquated computer system that had actual, running, EAM equipment for crew payroll. I took the Art Director into the computer room, raised floor, air conditioning, etc., and showed him a card sorter and an alphanumeric interpeter. This was a machine that read a punch card and printed human readable text across the top row. When the card deck was finished, it was taken to another machine for further processing. What seems like a joke today was the reality of the time. The art director took the rounded corners, grey crinkle finish and used it to create the fictional wopr. Allan Kay, one of the four Apple Fellows of Apple computer, commented that it was impressively accurate for the style of machine that the military would have had when the movie was released in the early 80’s. As a sidebar, off wopr topic, we used an atari 800 in preproduction. It had four oscillators and we actually could create the DTMF tones required to dial every number in an area code/prefix and attempt to communicate with a modem. We took that detail out so that people wouldn’t try to do that at home. Also, that IMSAI 8080 was mine. And the incredibly geeky looking acoustic coupler was my friend’s, Steve Grumette. He and I designed the methodolgoy for the maps on the monitors in the crystal palace, using Solid State Music video boards running on 2 Godbout S-100 computers. Steve reprogrammed a character generating ROM with map sections instead of letter shapes to produce maps on the small screens. the large screens were rear screen projectors with images programmed on HP 3000 Color Basic. It took about 5 minutes to generate a single frame! The studio assured us it could not be done. Glad you liked the movie, but it’s John’s film. I just helped geek it up. One of the writer’s, Walter Parkes, is now a Very Big Deal at Dreamworks and has been for some time.Posted at 8:54PM on Oct 26th 2004 by David Sosna 0 starsOf course, I couldn’t resist the urge to correct this egregious error by responding to his post on http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/23/movie-gadget-friday-the-w-o-p-r-from-wargames/: 14. Mr. Sosna certainly makes a broad stroke of claims that almost sound believable. However, he states “Also, that IMSAI 8080 was mine. And the incredibly geeky looking acoustic coupler was my friend’s”.