Let me see if I can provide any info:
when the laser scans Flynn, it is a molecular deconstructor system designed to take a 'Real World'
3-D object and capture it into the digital world. Therefore, Flynn is captured into the digitalworld and held in it's memory. He is able to move around in the digital world, which was personified for story telling purposes, viewers could relate to seeing a human looking character instead of a truely digital form.
Now since TRON is a program, he could be installed on other comuters but in the movie stories' case, he is on a network server, so TRON is available to any computer on the network and doesn't have to be installed onto specific computers. Now if TRON is installed on a stand alone computer, it would exist independantly and not be aware of the original program's existance. Now if that stand alone PC were to get connected to , say the Inthernet and encountered another copy of TRON, it would probably, but maybe not, be able to exist simultaneously (whew!).

Tronclone my friend,

The programs weren't portrayed in "human form", as "humanoids" if you like, *JUST* for the pleasure of WE viewers at all. It was truly supposed to be this WAY, that's the wonderful thing. They are really this way, if you understand what I mean.

You know, the digital universe is a parallel "reflex" of ours, but the parameters are substantially different, because "translated" into another quantic language. That's all.

Hey, what's about the SARK point?
Thinking to it a little bit more, it seems the "SOLAR SAILORS" were IMPULSES able to transmit programs into outside domains or systems.
So, as like MCP was able to take over programs alien to the ENCOM system, so it could "blast" programs into other systems... that could explain why SARK was into FLYNN's videogame at the very beginning of the movie, or why TRON and YORI needed to move from the game domain to reach MCP's core and destroy it... maybe the game grid wasn't part of the ENCOM world. Isn't it?

Agreed, Sketch. Only who created/wrote the QUICKTIME own the "original", individual program in his system. Our versions are new, slighty different individuals with new behaviours and... who knows... they really own our faces or are slighty similar to US in terms of look-like.
After all, LIESENBERG the genius talked so many time about "informations", and not only programs - informations we commonly "use" for our purpouses and so a little bit of OURSELF is in THEM (related to the Electroverse)... he said this a lot of times. Probably he was referring to when we use programs written by someone else !!!!!!!!!!!

I envisioned the Game Grid as separate from the ENCOM system. Sark has to use his carrier to travel there. I would think the Game Grid (per the film) is all videogame arcades everywhere accessed by this one sector. I don't know how else, as stated, Sark could access that one arcade machine--but that's also a leap of imagination that the film took. Who's really controlling the lightcycles? The person playing the game in the real world, or the programs driving the cycles?

Then again, arcade machines were stand-alone systems. There's really no way the MCP or Sark could get into them. So I guess we just have to lean on the good ol' "willing suspension of disbelief"!

Ah, gotta love to ramble!

**edit**
foilism, I just love your signature

Man, you think too much. lol Gotta look at some of this from a kid's point of view here. The way I had always thought of it was that they could travel to the arcade machines via outlets in the wall. Of course, remember that Dillenger stole Flynn's game ideas, and thus would have such access to them. You'll notice that we never see a program playing Pacman or Donkey Kong. Keep in mind this was before big office networks and stuff as we know them today. I'm sure they didn't think about the concept as it would exist today, but rather as it did back then. As a dream. A shot in the dark really. Something still in the works and quite a mystery to most people. So they just made stuff up. The world of Tron is a world of it's own. It's a different reality where things are slightly different as far as technology goes. So if you think about it like that, pretty much any theory is valid. So that is why they never explain a copy theory or anything like that. Because they didn't think of it that way. It always seemed to me like they wrote and ran the program on their computer, on their network. So only one copy existed and only one was ever needed. I suppose to know the real truth, you'd have to ask Lisberger himself about his vision. It would be like asking George Lucas about the Star Wars universe and Jedi lore. You've got to suspend your reality sometimes. Not everything has to make sense. However, some things were explained and make sense if you think about it in our terms.

For example, the digitizing beam was in and of itself a primitive transporter. Like the ones on Star Trek. That's why Alan asked if it could send him to Hawaii. Lora said something about how the object can be digitized and then sent anywhere over any distance to remolecularize in the real world. I think your (b) option would be closer to what they had in mind. It's the beginning of teleportation technology. "But you have to purchase your program three days in advance."

A lot of the concepts in Tron weren't exactly real back then, but are today. Like the network of different "domains" and such. The programs are in humanoid form, because "a peice of us resides within each and every one." That's how they explain that in the movie and that makes some sense, because programmers tend to have their own signature when creating programs. They'll leave something behind that lets people know who designed it. Just look in a bunch of the old Atari and Intellivision games.

As for the Sark in the lightcycle thing at the beginning, that IS Sark. In the movie, there is only one Sark. One Tron. One Flynn. You hear the MCP talking to Sark about "getting brutal" in the games right after that scene. This implies that that was actually Sark doing all that. Not a copy or anything. I mean, why would it have been a different Sark? Why would they try to confuse people like that? That may be why it wasn't received well when it was first released into theaters. Can you imagine people back then, having even less of a clue about how computers operate than most do now, having to visualize all this going on and try to make sense of it? When you think of Tron in it's own movie world, it makes sense. It's when you try to apply it to modern day computer networks and concepts that you have a hard time explaining why.

In the spirit of "what if" though, I've been thinking of something interesting. If users can be digitized into a "program" image, what would happen if they tried the reverse with a program? Say, Tron for example. Unrealistic, though it may be. But then, having a human go into a computer system is quite unrealistic as well. So while we're suspending disbelief here, what do you think about that? How do you think a program would respond to being in the real world? I think it'd kinda be like in the old days of Greek mythology, when humans talked about gods and Mt. Olympus. It'd be sorta like that. Going up to a relm where only gods exist. Seeing as how it seems that the pro

TRIGGER,

Pretty satysfing answers, but please, don't understimate LISBERGER's genius in such semplicistic, even genuine, way. I know you were just making your point, anyway.
Steven knew about program copies or how TRON's world worked from every point of view. Truly. I don't think TRON's world is a "dream" at all! - it really would REFLECT how computer systems and programs work today, that's the reason the movie was *SO MUCH* AHEAD of its own time... because it's AHEAD still now, and we're in 2003.

However, I enjoyed your post intro, but i'm still thinking too much, and PROUD in doing it as well! I hate when people says: "It's just a movie", because they really don't get a clue. A movie is an open WIDOW on hidden mechanics which move OUR reality. There are parallel dimensions and zillion and zillion of space-time continuum lines. In one of them, you registered yourself in this forum as "PROGRAM BASIC" and I did it as "TRIGGER", but everything out of there is similar to our line! It's pshysic, man! They called it "Quantistic theory", and it's damn real.

Anyway:


"For example, the digitizing beam was in and of itself a primitive transporter. Like the ones on Star Trek. That's why Allen asked if it could send him to Hawaii. Lori said something about how the object can be digitized and then sent anywhere over any distance to remolecularize in the real world. I think your (b) option would be closer to what they had in mind. It's the beginning of teleportation technology. "But you have to purchase your program three days in advance." "

GREAT! YOU'RE RIGHT ABOUT THE WHOLE TRANSPORTER THING. BASICALLY THEY REALIZED A "SETH BRUNDLE'S MACHINE" WHICH TURNED TO BE A DIGITALIZING PROJECTOR. MIXING UP APPLES WITH POTATOES, BECAUSE THEY REALLY DIDN'T KNOW OR CAN'T IMAGINE BEYOND THE SCREEN THERE WAS AN UNIVERSE... WHERE ENERGY BREATHES!

A lot of the concepts in Tron weren't exactly real back then, but are today. Like the network of different "domains" and such.

I THINK THE DOMAINS THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT WERE SECTIONS OF ONE SYTEM, ENCOM SYSTEM, OF COURSE.
NOW THE TERM IS GONE "RE-ARRANGED" TO BETTER DESCRIBE INTERNET'S STRUCTURE BUT COMING BACK TO 1982, IT WAS THAT WAY.

The programs are in humanoid form, because "a peice of us resides within each and every one." That's how they explain that in the movie and that makes some sense, because programmers tend to have their own signature when creating programs. They'll leave something behind that lets people know who designed it. Just look in a bunch of the old Atari and Intellivision games.

AGAIN, QUANTISTIC THEORY.

As for the Sark in the lightcycle thing at the beginning, that IS Sark. In the movie, there is only one Sark. One Tron. One Flynn.

BECAUSE NO ONE NEEDED TO COPY THEM... BUT IT WAS AS MUCH POSSIBLE BACK THEN AS IT'S POSSIBLE NOW.

You hear the MCP talking to Sark about "getting brutal" in the games right after that scene. This implies that that was actually Sark doing all that. Not a copy or anything. I mean, why would it have been a different Sark? Why would they try to confuse people like that? That may be why it wasn't received well when it was first released into theaters. Can you imagine people back then, having even less of a clue about how computers operate than most do now, having to visualize all this going on and try to make sense of it?

I CAN IMAGINE.

When you think of Tron in it's own movie world, it makes sense. It's when you try to apply it to modern day computer networks and concepts when you have a hard time explaining why.

NO. I THINK IT'S NOT SO HARD. AFTER ALL, INTERNET WORKS AS ONE HUGE, DIVORING SYSTEM FILLED WITH PROGRAMS. I THINK IN TRON'S WORLD THE VEHICULAR STRUCTURES CHANGED A LOT, BECAUSE THE SYSTEM BECAME INCREASELY LARGER AND LARGER TIME BY TIME, BUT EVERYTHING LOOKS THE SAME. KIND OF. THE "COPIES" ISSUE ISN'T HARD ENOUGH TO DIGEST TODAY. I THINK ONE TRON'S COPY LOOKS AND ACTS A LITTLE BIT<

Made a little bit of searching.

Yeah, I understand the term "slurp" now, Jediunit (thanks!) but I think this term actually follows and surrounds the FIRST POINT about my theory on the LASER BEAM's function and nature.
So, in your view, FLYNN was "read" as human organism and the LASER BEAM system made a program out of the lecture. Ergo: FLYNN's molecular structure stayed OUT of the Electroverse, but disjointed for a short amount of time ('til the program-FLYNN would have found the way to defeat MCP) while a PROGRAM of Flynn's human essay" was created into the Electroverse. So, in the movie, we see FLYNN's digital simulacrum who believed to be FLYNN, but he isn't.

I don't agree. I tend to agree with TRIGGER, so we can't pick the term "slurp" anymore... FLYNN went CONVERTED --- literally. So it's basically FLYNN, not a mere lecture.

I don't think there is a middle point too... maybe.

I'm not dubitating on your aknowledge at all, just on WHAT HAPPENED to FLYNN.
So I think "slurp" just describes the wrong theory --- it's still a correct term, anyway.

It wasn't a yellow apple. It was a orange. XP

Between games, arcade games often run a 'demo' mode where the game plays, but the program is doing everything. Maybe it's during this time that Sark and his cronies are in there kicking everyone's butt.

I'm not underestimating Lisberger at all. Quite the opposite. I think he is quite creative and inventive. By saying that you have to think like a kid, I meant using more imagination than rational explanation, which is something one must do in order to create such a movie as Tron. It's something they all had when working on the film.

Tron is what inspired me to persue a career in computer technology. It's why I'm a computer technician today. I think it inspired a lot of other people, and that's probably why computer systems are actually more like the world of Tron now than they were back then.

One way to think of the copy thing is that it's the same program, but installing it on another system is just like opening a portal to allow that particular program to enter and do it's thing. The world inside the computer moves so fast, we don't notice this transaction. Maybe we'll see a better explanation in the upcoming game and movie.

Hehe, "slurped." It's sorta like that in some way. If you look at the laser beam as a straw and Flynn as a beverage. I think that Flynn was actually pulled in and converted into data, whereas the orange was simply "suspended in the laser beam." It's just that the MCP used the beam to reassemble Flynn inside the computer world rather than just holding and returning his pattern. The MCP was a rather intelligent computer. Seeing as how it went and appropriated technology from other big companies. It's not beyond the realm of rational thought.

I don't think the world of Tron existed in any comparable operating system we know of. It looked a lot like a command line OS of some sort. Perhaps in 2.0, we'll see a GUI version of the system and be able to compare easier. Besides, an OS is just an interface that allows the user to communicate with the data. The raw data is pretty much always the same no matter the OS. Only the format is different to allow communication to a user through a certain OS.