QUESTION!! what do we think the total population is on the 82 grid in the first Tron movie???
So much of the original grid is empty with an extremely exaggerated scale of infrastructure. Even then I feel like the crowds of conscripts/ isos/ other random programs isn’t really accurate to what computers could do back then?? realistically if every program is a unique function- did computers back then really do that much?? I feel like a modern computer doesn’t have that many separate software apps (even including the useless/ non-obvious ones we don’t think about) or processes running in the task manager.
Am I that far off to say there’s like 5000 programs on the original grid tops? +/- some derezzed? including the “inoperative data pushers?” OR should this be looked at in terms of average program size and storage capability of computers at the time?
I’d say you can probably pick whatever number you want. As long as it’s above the number of programs we literally see onscreen. (And hell, even somewhat lower, if we imagine that the same program could sometimes take on different appearances? But not that common probably.)
In terms of “visible programs per visible space,” there’s no real proof of whether or not that ratio is consistent throughout the whole system– or whether it even actually represents kilobytes of programs per kilobytes of storage space. Could mean anything, really
And as for typical capabilities of computers at the time… well, we know Encom was wildly atypical on that front. So who knows! Go wild, lol
Yeah, I think the important thing is that the movie is set inside the computer network of a big corporation. ENCOM is housed inside a large skyscraper, and if each/most floors looks like the one we see…
…then that’s a huge amount of cubicles, suggesting a huge amount of employees. And if each employee has their own Program (and maybe even more than one), that would add up to a pretty large population inside the digital world.
I had guessed 5,000 but the cubicle farm makes me think like 50,000 if ENCOM owns the whole building.
and I’m sure they have other offices.
I guess the question is whether all the people in those cubicles are programmers with their own programs? or whether some percentage of them just do various clerical work to assist the programmers (possibly using programs written by others)?
Could go a lot of ways. Guess you can choose depending on the kind of story you want to tell.
But from what’s said in the film about Encom’s international scope, I do imagine they could have staggering numbers of programs in there.
