War Games 25 Years Later

On July 29th, MGM will release a 25th Anniversary edition of War Games. This movie was an icon to geeks the world over. We longed to find an open line with our war dialers. Finding some unprotected computer system and taking a look around was the ultimate prize.

By the way, a war dialer was a program that automatically dialed numbers and checked for a modem tone on the other end. If a tone was found, the number would be captured for later use.

I must admit my VIC 20 and Commodore 64 paled in comparison to Matthew Broderick's computer of the day, but I didn't let that stop me from trying to hack into a few computer systems myself.

Most of today's kids would not get the significance, or even care that your could, connect to other computers through the phone. Bulletin Board Systems, or BBS for short, were the precursors to public Internet access. BBS's allowed people to share information and files, start discussions, and were basically very early social networks.

The movie didn't have any impact on technology, but it did give the audience a glimpse of what the United States Government was using to run its defense systems. The WOPR, a mainframe type computer, depicted in the movie as a very large metal box with a bunch of LED lights, was the master mind, or central computer. This computer took on a life of it's own, when a young kid, played by Matthew Broderick, some how finds a back door using a war dialer, and starts a war simulation.

Eventually the computer completes the simulation, but nearly started world war three in the process. The movie plays on the attitude, and fear, most Americans had at the time, about an all out nuclear war with the Russians. Interesting how the use of geeky technology was used to make some sort of political statement.

If its been a while since you've watched War Games, go rent it, or download it. If you've never seen the movie before, go rent it, you'll be glad you did. But most of all, buy the anniversary edition when it comes out at the end of the month.