Who's their IT support

[tazntpa]

What I'd like to know is who's maintaining those Mag Taps you see spinning around in the computer room? No one ever seems to be changing them out ...

Anybody notice the washer & dryer in the last episode - nice new sears front loaders. Must have been on the parachute drop!

[Lpspider]

I didn't notice this, but you are probably right.

[mancat]

Being an IT geek myself, I've nitpicked quite a few times over the computer setup in the hatch.

- Same as you, who is maintaining the tapes? They don't last forever.
- Minicomputers don't just magically boot up and resume operations after a power failure without some sort of operator interaction.
- Why isn't there a backup power supply? Redundant power? Hell, where is the power coming from in the first place? If there's a generating station on the island, it shouldn't be hard to find.
- Why does the Apple II terminal display some kind of Times Roman font? Wouldn't it have been easier to find a real Apple II to use as a prop, instead of making this fake lookalike?
- Last but not least, and most importantly, why have someone to push the button at all? If it's so vital that the magnet gets reset every 108 minutes, why not automate the process? Automation of that nature was pretty easily performed with industrial control technology of the late seventies.

[kermit]

the people making this show are obviously not idiots, and do pay attention to details... your last bit about the automation of the button is obvious - it's a part of the plot. dharma has someone pushing the button for a reason. also, i'm an it geek too, i've been programming 12 hours a day for 6 years, and i would not trust a computer to take care of a possible world-ending task with no human intervention... granted, there would be a backup system, you would still want a person there monitoring it constantly, and the best way to do that is to let them think there is no backup system

also, how do you know those computers and tapes do anything at all? maybe they just spin around and flash and beep to make the button pushing people think it's important.

also we don't know much about what happened before and while desmond was there... it's possible everything was set up nicely before desmond got there, and it's also possible that someone snuck in while desmond was out in the forest, or sleeping, and fixed everything up...

also, the fake lookalike is probably because they had a very specific idea of what they wanted the screen to look like. the set designers won't just throw something in there for no reason, they want it all to maintain a certain atmosphere to it, and i guarantee they picked the look of the computer, and of the screen display, to fit their overall vision of the hatch. remember, this is "lost", not "the office" the mystery and strangeness of it all is extremely important

[The Lost Man]

^ lol. Excellent points.

[Jemrada]

Common sense tells you they can't micro manage every single tid bit of detail - the show would be very boring.