Oppenheimer's 70mm IMAX release requires a Palm PDA emulator to do its cinema magic

[Alfonso Maruccia]

In context: Ancient computer technologies are never completely retired, especially when they are required to operate exclusive machinery found in only a few locations worldwide. A case in point is the new 70mm IMAX release of Oppenheimer, written and directed by Hollywood wonder boy Christopher Nolan, and one of the most anticipated films of the year.

Blu-ray disks still provide the best experience for watching films and TV series at home, floppy disks are still needed here and there, and when hardware fails, there's always the emulation route to keep using decades-old equipment like Quick Turn Reel Units for IMAX theaters. These units host the ginormous physical film reels of an IMAX movie, and they are seemingly best controlled with a device that originally shipped to customers in 2002.

Christopher Nolan, a long-time supporter of the IMAX proprietary system for high-resolution films, filmed Oppenheimer in the standard's native 70mm format. The technology offers 10 times the resolution of standard film formats, as explained on the movie's official website, providing IMAX moviegoers with the "most immersive presentation" of the film about the life of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

According to a brief video recently shared by IMAX Corporation via TikTok, the 70mm film reel of Oppenheimer was so large that it required adjustments to the film platters. The most interesting tidbit shown in the clip, however, is the PalmOS emulator, seemingly necessary to operate the IMAX Quick Turn Reel Units.

IMAX later confirmed that the original Quick Turn Reel Units for 70mm film prints operated on PalmPilots. The Palm m130, a personal digital assistant (PDA) equipped with a 33MHz CPU, a 160x160 pixel LCD screen, and Palm OS 4.1, seems to be the ideal device to keep IMAX reel units running. Prior to the release of Oppenheimer, the company's developers had to create an emulator that mimics the look and feel of a PalmPilot PDA while running on a Windows tablet.

Some IMAX theaters can seemingly use physical Palm PDA devices to control the 70mm reel units. According to IMAX Corporation, their dedicated m130 emulator provides additional controls for the left and right sides of 3D projectors, sets when a platter is ready for film, and more.

The need for a quasi-ancient technology like the Palm m130 seems particularly fitting for Oppenheimer, Nolan's new bombastic thriller about a man instrumental in developing the world's first atomic bombs with the Manhattan Project. The dawn of the Atomic Age provided the Allied forces with the overwhelming force they needed to win the Second World War, and 80 years later, we are still grappling with the potential threat of an all-out nuclear war between the US, Russia, and other countries equipped with nuclear weapons.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99517-oppenheimer-70mm-imax-release-requires-palm-pda-emulator.html

 

[VitalyT]

...and one of the most anticipated films of the year

You're behind the curve here, the movie was released a few days ago, and I, for one, have watched it, 3 days ago, and found it well-made, yet long-boring and depressing.

 

[kinetix]

Bro, I have a 2001 or 2002 PocketPC iPaq here in a drawer. some time ago I adapted a mobile battery and it works perfectly, even Win10 can communicate with it. I only regret that it does not have wifi or BT, only its usb cable, and I do not have any adapter, it would be interesting to do some retro experiments....

 

[hwertz]

It'd be difficult. I had a WinCE PDA (one of the clamshell models with a little keyboard.. I got it used for like $10 or something) that I got a 2.2GB Microstor mini hard drive, and a wifi card that surprisngly WinCE actually supported. I threw NetBSD on there, which ran well for about a week, then some update broke support and as far as I can tell it never got fixed (at least when I tried for the next month or two to put updated kernels on it didn't help... I couldn't *downgrade* the kernel because it's a rolling release and I didn't keep the previous files. D'oh!)

Anyway... I doubt that card supported WPA or WPA2? It'd be "open network" or WEP. And I doubt the browser could connect to most web sites -- most now require https, AND they've dropped support for older crypto methods. Forget WinXP-era stuff -- my DVR running Ubuntu 11.04 (2011 era) can't connect to any web sites any more either. Maybe there'd be a "new enough" Opera browser for it but I wouldn't count on it. It'd be fun to try out but don't get those expectations too high!

Side note, there used to be some Linux variants for iPaq, to run something a tad more up to date than WinCE -- I don't know if any of them are very up to date either though.

 

[kinetix]

It'd be difficult. I had a WinCE PDA (one of the clamshell models with a little keyboard.. I got it used for like $10 or something) that I got a 2.2GB Microstor mini hard drive, and a wifi card that surprisngly WinCE actually supported. I threw NetBSD on there, which ran well for about a week, then some update broke support and as far as I can tell it never got fixed (at least when I tried for the next month or two to put updated kernels on it didn't help... I couldn't *downgrade* the kernel because it's a rolling release and I didn't keep the previous files. D'oh!)

Anyway... I doubt that card supported WPA or WPA2? It'd be "open network" or WEP. And I doubt the browser could connect to most web sites -- most now require https, AND they've dropped support for older crypto methods. Forget WinXP-era stuff -- my DVR running Ubuntu 11.04 (2011 era) can't connect to any web sites any more either. Maybe there'd be a "new enough" Opera browser for it but I wouldn't count on it. It'd be fun to try out but don't get those expectations too high!

Side note, there used to be some Linux variants for iPaq, to run something a tad more up to date than WinCE -- I don't know if any of them are very up to date either though.

Yes, I know that you can change the system to a couple of different Linux, and give them some extra capabilities, of course, some require extra hardware. I thought maybe install it some day, but for now it stays with Win.
back in 2007 or 2008 I programmed a couple of applications for PocketPC. I had an iPaq back then with Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 I think. It was one of the best at the time. It's a shame I didn't keep it (as I regret not having kept other things, which today is making it difficult for me with some things I'm rebuilding to relive some memories)

yes, there is an old or special Opera version, still running in Win98

 

[hwertz]

Yes, I know that you can change the system to a couple of different Linux, and give them some extra capabilities, of course, some require extra hardware. I thought maybe install it some day, but for now it stays with Win.
back in 2007 or 2008 I programmed a couple of applications for PocketPC. I had an iPaq back then with Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 I think. It was one of the best at the time. It's a shame I didn't keep it (as I regret not having kept other things, which today is making it difficult for me to relive some memories with some things I'm rebuilding)

yes, there is an old or special Opera version, still running in Win98

When I worked at P&G a few years ago (like 3, 4 years ago) they were making daily, heavy use of 1 or 2 Windows Mobile devices to run part of their shipping equipment. I kind of wondered if they had spares, or any plan on what to do if they had problems with those devices. They looked in good shape considering they'd probably been in continuous use for 10-15 years by then.