Terminator: Do Robots Think in Apple II Source Code?

Remember the original Terminator movie? Well, we came aross a bit of geeky Terminator trivia this weekend. Whenever you see through the eyes of The Terminator himself, a bunch of computery text is scrolling by. It turns out this text is the source code for an Apple II checksum program, among other programs. The code was first published in Nibble magazine in the early 80’s, so was close at hand when the movie’s producers needed something high-tech for their futuristic robot/killing machine/bodybuilder.

The code featured in the movie runs on a 70’s-era MOS 6502 microprocessor. Does this mean The Terminator himself had enough processing power to run The Oregon Trail? (“The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Two oxen die fording a river.”)

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