Emacs appearances in pop culture

 (ianyepan.github.io)

215 points | by ggcr 1 day ago

20 comments

  • TeaVMFan 4 hours ago
    Not exactly an appearance, but I definitely give emacs a shout-out in the end notes of my new novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYCZJVGX
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    • mck- 3 hours ago
      That’s funny, I launched a startup novel three days ago [1] where I also referenced emacs in one of the scenes

      [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447484

    • poolnoodle 1 hour ago
      That sounds really interesting, would like to read it. Amazon is not an option for me though since they don't let you download your ebook files anymore. Any other way I can get a copy and pay you for it?
    • nickla 3 hours ago
      Amazon! Are you selling an e-book? I couldn't access the site. I wouldn't buy from them anyway as I am sure they require DRM. I don't buy DRM.
  • ge96 5 hours ago
    How to sell drugs online fast was a great show because they kept stressing how they had to have the test pass in their Vue front end.

    I always whenever I see code on a show/movie I wonder if it's real, a lot of times it's a mix of random languages. Sometimes just jibberish.

    Also recently watched Nirvana 1997 really good.

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    • xoxxala 2 hours ago
      The T-800s HUD scene in the first Terminator used 6502 assembly from Nibble magazine.

      https://www.theterminatorfans.com/the-terminator-vision-hud-...

    • dhosek 4 hours ago
      One of the great onscreen code moments was in Superman III¹ where Richard Pryors’ character has written some “impossible” program and when the listing is shown on screen it’s pretty much five screens of BASIC REM statements.

      ⸻

      1. A movie which exists primarily to set up a joke in Office Space.

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      • teddyh 3 hours ago 

          5 CLS
  10 PRINT "PLOT BILATERAL CO-ORDINATES"
  15 PRINT : PRINT
  20 GOSUB 5000
  25 PRINT "INPUT CO-ORDINATE X :  "
  31 PRINT "4";
  33 PRINT "2";
  35 PRINT "Y" : PRINT
  40 PRINT "INPUT CO-ORDINATE Y :  "
  41 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 41 : IF
  42 PRINT "Z";
  43 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 43 : IF
  44 PRINT "+";
  45 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 45 : IF
  46 PRINT "X"
  47 GOSUB 5000
  50 CLS
  60 PRINT "0010 N = RND(900)"
  70 PRINT "0020 Z = 1 TO N"
  80 PRINT "0030 X = 1 TO 31"
  90 PRINT "0040 Y = 1 TO 15"
  100 PRINT "0050 SET(31-X,16-Y,Z)TO(31+X,Y,"
  110 PRINT "0060 SET(31+X,Y,Z)TO(31-X,16-Y,"
  120 PRINT "0070 SET(X,16+Y,Z-Y)TO(X,Y,Z)"
  130 PRINT "0080 SET(X,16-Y,Z+Y)TO(16+X,Y+)"
  140 PRINT "0090 GOTO 500"
  150 PRINT "0100 NEXT X:NEXT Y:NEXT Z
  160 PRINT "0110 CLS"
  170 PRINT "0120 DATA 1.13.2.67.2."
  180 PRINT "0130 DATA 12.45.90.3.23.56.2.56"
  190 PRINT "0140 DATA 3.6.1.43.92.56.2.9.08"
  200 PRINT "0150 DIM P(9)"
  210 PRINT "0160 B$ = CHR$(191)"
  220 PRINT "0170 FOR X = Y - Z : PRINT X"
  230 PRINT "0180 FOR Y = X - Z : PRINT Y"
  240 PRINT "0190 END"
  250 PRINT
  260 PRINT
  270 PRINT
  280 PRINT
  290 PRINT
  300 PRINT
  310 PRINT
  320 PRINT
  330 PRINT
  340 PRINT
  350 PRINT
      • jgrahamc 4 hours ago
        More great on screen code moments (I haven't got round to Superman III, yet): https://behind-the-screens.tv But Superman III is not just REM statements.
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        • reaperducer 1 hour ago
          Waiting for him to get around to Jumpin' Jack Flash.
    • noir_lord 3 hours ago
      Replicator code in Star Gate was iirc (it’s been a good while) the html/js for the royal bank of Canada (appropriate since it was mostly filmed in Canada).
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      • ge96 2 hours ago
        now that's cool, the OG star gate movie? I watched SG-1 multiple times and watched the other ones too, too bad about the reboot being cancelled.
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        • noir_lord 1 hour ago
          TV show, replicators didn’t show up in the movie, they were an Asgard/SG1 villain.
    • bigmattystyles 4 hours ago
      Like that time Kelly Rowland sent Nelly a text using excel https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/comments/1b8xawt/kel...
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    • cgag 4 hours ago
      I paused a bunch of times and I forget the details, but I remember everything always looking good, especially his brainstorming about the site and making notes about pgp and onion services and the like.

      I also loved them knowing Lenny wrote some code, as he was the only person in the world who uses snake case in javascript, because I’m also a snake case heretic.

    • thesuitonym 4 hours ago
      > a lot of times it's a mix of random languages. Sometimes just jibberish.

      And sometimes it's just a directory listing.

  • spillcoffee 25 minutes ago
    Do you lose all street cred if you use Emacs keyboard shortcuts whenever you can, but will use vim/nvim if there is no other choice?
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    • tikhonj 23 minutes ago
      You always have a choice. Sometimes the best move is not to play.
  • tdubey 5 hours ago
    Hilariously, the Arctic Blast screenshot seems to be the Audacity audio editor with Emacs overlaid! https://ianyepan.github.io/images/arctic-blast-emacs.png
  • zingar 3 hours ago
    Enjoyable list but I’m not sure the AlphaGo documentary counts as pop culture :).

    It’s interesting how people talk about vi vs emacs, can’t remember ever meeting anyone who chose vi over vim, let alone enough people to make th at the debate.

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    • bch 43 minutes ago
      > can’t remember ever meeting anyone who chose vi over vim

      Pleased to meet you.

      Most of my console dev time is spent in *BSD, where nvi is where I land. I find the the default creature-features of vim annoying, so I end up having to configure it to be a bit more quiet, and I don't know anything so compelling about it (a vi clone (to an extreme, acknowledged)) that nvi isn't a good enough place to be. I have vim installed, but it's not my go-to.

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      • jolmg 7 minutes ago
        > I don't know anything so compelling about it

        For me, it'd be primarily having more than one undo. Not being able to undo the second-to-last change is pretty bad. In fact, vim's undo being set up as a tree that can be walked with g- and g+ is excellent. It's impossible to lose a state of the buffer, even if you undo and make changes. It's a lot more practical to navigate than Emacs undo, too.

        EDIT: I just realized that nvi can undo more than one change by having u toggle the direction and . continue in that direction. I don't think ex-vi could. busybox vi seems like it can undo multiple with u but it seems to have no redo.

    • jolmg 1 hour ago
      > can’t remember ever meeting anyone who chose vi over vim, let alone enough people to make th at the debate.

      Because vim generally offers everything vi has.

      vi does have one advantage though. It's a lot lighter. vim is like 5.4MiB in size with 82 shared library dependencies, while vi[1] is like 260KiB with 2 library dependencies (libc and ncurses).

      [1] https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/

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  • dleslie 3 hours ago
    Cryptonomicon has the use of a highly custom version of Emacs called OrdoEmacs.

    https://dev.to/hyenast2/neal-stephenson-s-cryptonomicon-and-...

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    • justinhj 18 minutes ago
      There's a perl script in the book that does some encryption/decryption. I remember typing it out and fixing it so it worked.
  • panza 1 hour ago
    I've often felt that Emacs is more popular in Japan than I'd expect. Could just be blue car syndrome on my part.
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    • mghackerlady 49 minutes ago
      There's two reasons for this, I think. The most obvious is that emacs has better CJK support compared to any other editor of the time. The less obvious is that Japan liked lisp machines and lisp in general a lot
  • DonHopkins 3 hours ago
    I have a cat named Emacs.
  • Barrin92 48 minutes ago
    JT Nimoy, responsible for the Tron scenes, had a nice write-up about their work on it as well:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20120502000130/https://jtnimoy.n...

  • drob518 2 hours ago
    > In a scene (Season 3, Episode 6) where protagonist Richard is coding with his new girlfriend Winnie at her apartment (okay, yeah… that’s not how all software engineers date, whatever the outside world may think), the two clash over the use of spaces versus tabs. Richard, a stubborn advocate of the tab character for indentation, argues: “I mean I do not get why anyone would use spaces over tabs. I mean, why not just use Vim over Emacs?” To which Winnie replies, “I do use Vim over Emacs.” Richard then breaks down, yelling, “Oh, God help us!”

    Gotta admit that I use Emacs and favor spaces over tabs. And K&R braces. And you’re wrong if you make any other choice.

  • valisvalis 1 hour ago
    Someone please make a Vim version.
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    • kridsdale1 1 hour ago
      Sadly no film or tv depiction exists because they ran out of film and budget waiting for the actor to figure out how to exit.
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  • laidoffamazon 3 hours ago
    I was hoping for Pantheon too (I’m 90% sure Holstrom uses EMacs instead of Vim?)
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    • nico 2 hours ago
      Amazing show btw, highly recommend it
  • DonHopkins 3 hours ago
    Deldo - Vibration Control and Teledildonics Mode for Emacs

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1sXuHnf_lo

    Interview with an Emacs Enthusiast [Colorized]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc

    Writing an Emacs implementation in C (Gosling Emacs) | James Gosling and Lex Fridman

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7aB-oxjVc

  • itrunsdoomguy 4 hours ago
    Time for an elisp port of Doom
  • herodoturtle 5 hours ago
    That TRON theme linked in the article is cool, thanks for sharing.

    At risk of being downvoted into oblivion by the emacs gang, I wonder if someone’s got a similar theme for vim?

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    • hsbauauvhabzb 4 hours ago
      There’s aren’t that hard to make, rip the palette and vibecoding a theme is viable.
  • guidoschmidt 3 hours ago
    Bonus points for silicon valley doubling the Emacs references with vim AND spaces vs tabs
  • worik 3 hours ago
    There is some trainspotting I can identify with!
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    • Grosvenor 1 hour ago
      Fuuck. Did Spud use vim?

      We know Sick Boy (Zero Cool) would be an emacs user.

  • messh 2 hours ago
    now someone do a "VIM appearances in pop culture" :)
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  • sscaryterry 1 hour ago
    Pfft. (neo)vim FTW ;)