Software in the Wild

I enjoy catching snippets of code in TV and movies. Sometimes it's just nonsense copy-pasted from somewhere, and sometimes it's actually real working code. This page is where I collect samples I've found.

Terminator (1984)

It's well known that the killing machine from the future runs on a 6502. But you can also see some random BASIC in the bottom right.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1997)

The Magi are programmed in C++.

Serial Experiments Lain (1999)

Lain is taught C in schools but programs in Lisp on her own.

Grimm (2011)

In this gritty fantasy detective show, you can find... VBA Script. Bless whoever is working on this excel macro.

The Simpsons (2020)

In "The Miseducation of Lisa Simpson", you can see her access a terminal. It's bash on Mac. The school must be running pre-Catalina OS because post Catalina, zsh is the default terminal. Or perhaps they decided to make bash the default.