Fsn (file manager)

Last updated
fsn
Developer(s) Silicon Graphics
Initial release1992;31 years ago (1992)
Operating system IRIX

File System Navigator (fsn; pronounced "fusion") is an experimental application to view a file system in 3D, made by SGI for IRIX systems.

Contents

Even though it was never developed to a fully functional file manager, it gained some fame after appearing in the movie Jurassic Park in 1993. [1] In a scene in the film, the character Lex Murphy, played by Ariana Richards, finds a computer displaying the interface. She exclaims, "It's a UNIX system! I know this!", and proceeds to restart the building's access control system, locking the control room's doors. After the release of the film, some perceived the visualization as an example of media misrepresentation of computers, [2] citing the computer game-like display as being an unrealistic Hollywood mockup while unaware of the program's legitimate existence. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening, renaming, copying, moving, deleting and searching for files, as well as modifying file attributes, properties and file permissions. Folders and files may be displayed in a hierarchical tree based on their directory structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphical user interface</span> User interface allowing interaction through graphical icons and visual indicators

A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation. In many applications, GUIs are used instead of text-based UIs, which are based on typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IRIX</span> Computer operating system

IRIX is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. In IRIX, SGI originated the XFS file system and the industry-standard OpenGL graphics system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silicon Graphics</span> Former American computing company

Silicon Graphics, Inc. was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and software. Founded in Mountain View, California in November 1981 by James Clark, its initial market was 3D graphics computer workstations, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Workstation</span> High-end single-user computer

A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to a network, but the most common form refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Apollo Computer, DEC, HP, NeXT, and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autodesk Maya</span> 3D computer graphics software

Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya, is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interactive 3D applications, animated films, TV series, and visual effects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UNIX System V</span> Early commercial UNIX operating system

Unix System V is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. System V Release 4 (SVR4) was commercially the most successful version, being the result of an effort, marketed as Unix System Unification, which solicited the collaboration of the major Unix vendors. It was the source of several common commercial Unix features. System V is sometimes abbreviated to SysV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SGI O2</span> Unix workstation from Silicon Graphics

The O2 is an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 uses a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia. Its larger counterpart is the SGI Octane. The O2 was SGI's last attempt at a low-end workstation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SGI Indigo</span> Workstations family by Silicon Graphics

The Indigo, introduced as the IRIS Indigo, is a line of workstation computers developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). SGI first announced the system in July 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IRIX Interactive Desktop</span> Computer software desktop environment

IRIX Interactive Desktop is a discontinued desktop environment normally used as the default desktop on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. The IRIX Interactive Desktop uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the X Window System found on most Unix systems. The default window manager on the IRIX Interactive Desktop is 4Dwm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SGI Crimson</span> Workstation computer

The IRIS Crimson is a Silicon Graphics (SGI) computer released in 1992. It is the world's first 64-bit workstation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division</span> Provides computing resources for various NASA projects

The NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division is located at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field in the heart of Silicon Valley in Mountain View, California. It has been the major supercomputing and modeling and simulation resource for NASA missions in aerodynamics, space exploration, studies in weather patterns and ocean currents, and space shuttle and aircraft design and development for almost forty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GopherVR</span>

GopherVR is an enhanced Internet Gopher client that includes a 3D visualization tool for viewing resource collections as 3D scenes. It explored how people outside of formal research laboratories could use spatial metaphors to access information. The 3D view was intended to be similar to 3D games of the time, like Spectre. The authors were interested in how this spatial representation could address the "lost in hyperspace" feeling that people using conventional Gopher clients sometimes experienced.

chsh is a command on Unix-like operating systems that is used to change a login shell. Users can either supply the pathname of the shell that they wish to change to on the command line, or supply no arguments, in which case chsh allows the user to change the shell interactively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">File System Visualizer</span> File manager for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems

File System Visualizer, also known as fsv, is a 3D file browser using OpenGL, written by Daniel Richard G. It is a clone of SGI's fsn file manager for IRIX systems, aimed to run on modern Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix-like</span> Operating system that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. Although there are general philosophies for Unix design, there is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix</span> Family of computer operating systems

Unix is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Performance Co-Pilot</span> Open-source tool for monitoring multiple computer systems

Performance Co-Pilot is an open source software infrastructure for monitoring, visualizing, recording, responding to, and controlling the status, activity, and performance of networks, computers, applications, and servers.

References

  1. "My Workstation OS: Irix". Linux.com. May 20, 2005. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.
  2. "8 Embarrassing Hollywood Tech Cliches". Archived from the original on 2009-08-01.
  3. Kranz, Tom (December 2, 2008). "FSN – the IRIX 3D file system tool from Jurassic Park". Archived from the original on February 8, 2014. Retrieved May 27, 2015.