Communicore Computer Central

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alanindy

New Member
It went away in 1994 I believe with the whole Innoventions change. It was very simple, but nicely done. It was interesting to see, and the "pepper's ghost" style of technique of projecting things onto the glass to highlight the areas being discuss was neat. It had a very low capacity though, and I'm sure too many people thought it was boring. Also, it wasn't underground. It was at ground level I believe. To see it you had to go up a ramp into a "theatre" located in the corner of Communicore East near Universe of Energy. It was sort of a show lasting about 15 to 20 min if I remember correctly. I kind of miss it, though I only did it twice over the years. I didn't even know it was there until my visit sometime in 1988 or so.
 
brkgnews

brkgnews

Well-Known Member
Keep in mind that one of the primary reasons it's not an attraction anymore is that computers are "boring" now. Before, they were a sight to behold because few had ever seen them. I personally now have two small ones hanging off my butt (iPod and a PDA cellphone).

Remember the big ol' satellite dish they used ot have in Future World? It was all well and good when they were futuristic and unknown. Now they're just utilitarian (and in the case of those big C-Band dishes, outdated and oversized).
 
cm1988

cm1988

Active Member
The room's still there... the hardware, probably not

The "Astuter Computer Review" (formerly "Epcot Computer Central") is no longer a show area of course, but the computer room is probably there... maybe filled with boxes of ponchos awaiting a rainy afternoon.

The computers that had been on display are probably replaced by rack-mounted pcs or even EPROMs (plug-in chips). Because much smaller computers are available now, there isn't such a need for a central computer room.

So I don't know exactly what WDW has done; whether SSE is still controlled from there or from a closet tucked away somewhere, but as we all know World Of Motion is gone, Horizons is gone, the rotating cubes of the Energy pre-show are gone... a lot of stuff that may have been centrally-controlled in the 80's is no longer around.
 
G

gsimpson

Well-Known Member
much of it was not really "computerrs"

When i was there in the late 80s I was luck enough to have a friend who was working on a lot of "digital conversions" for Disney and when he was showing me around a lot of the "computer equipment" in that room was what they called "bin loop machines" which essentially were boxes that contained endless loop tapes of the various audio tracks used around Epcot. They were made to look like Sperry/Univac disk and I/O channel controllers just because it was more impressive to the audience. When I was there they had started switching the audio to digital and as they upgraded they moved the sound equipment out of the central location to the location (attraction) that is was used for. I was told (don't know how true it was) that they were originally all centralized because they had almost constant maintenance going on to keep the audio loops working and sounding well including waxing the tapes every week or two. At the same time they started using more local computers to run the attractions so there were less and less real computers to show as well. From what I understand this area is substantially reduced in size and is mostly security and energy management now.
 
Yen_Sid1

Yen_Sid1

New Member
There is still a lot of computer equipment up there. It still controls all the audio and all the entertainment throughout the park including Illuminations.
 
Woody13

Woody13

New Member
gsimpson said:
They were made to look like Sperry/Univac disk and I/O channel controllers just because it was more impressive to the audience.
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They were made to look like Sperry machines because Sperry was the corporate sponsor of this show. You’re right about the computers, they were just a bunch of hollow boxes with some electric motors to make the “computer tapes” spin. The computer keyboard used in the show was an Atari 800 (a 48k "home" computer). :lol: :wave:
 
CrashNet

CrashNet

Well-Known Member
Yen_Sid1 said:
There is still a lot of computer equipment up there. It still controls all the audio and all the entertainment throughout the park including Illuminations.
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Yep, they are all still there, and they are all the same racks and computer equipment, though I'm sure there have been upgrades with time. But I walk up and down the ramp everyone is talking about (it is now part of backstage) and by the door everytime I'm at work and through the window are several monitors in the racks with the videos for Spaceship Earth playing. Really neat.

If you go into Innoventions East to the Fantastic Plastic Works, right behind the wall with the big screen on it for the game is Computer Central. In fact, the other side of that wall is the glass used for the projections. Even the lighting and effects are still there, just no longer used.

One of the biggest reasons it closed was because of the advancement in technology, but also because of the global thinking behind a centralized computer system. New rides and upgrades, including some old attractions, have all of their control equipment localized in their area rather than being added to what was computer central. The reason why is because as technology improved, more and more people realized a centralized control system's biggest weakness: what happens when it fails. If you have one central brain control everything and it fails, the whole park shuts down, literally. It actually happened once in the 80s I believe to Computer Central. Because of that, companies shy from a central brain, localizing technology and in a lot of instances, detaching them from all other company (or park) functions all together.

dolbyman said:
you can see the whole communicore attraction on marnis video :wave:
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Where is this video located dolbyman? I've never got to see what it looked like in its glory days.
 

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