Alan Kay Is Tron

The protagonist in the TronMovie is named Alan, and is fighting against the command-line oriented MasterControlProgram. This was a deliberate allegory of the life of AlanKay. Alan and one of writers of Tron (BonnieMacBird? -- http://us.imdb.com/Bio?MacBird,+Bonnie ) subsequently were married.

I could be wrong, but "Tron" sounded like it came from the early 8-bit Microsoft BASIC (MBASIC) commands "TRON" (Trace on) & "TROFF" (Trace off). (Now I date myself; circa 8-bit CP/M-80. ;-) -- JeffGrigg

Yes. There were other such references; I think I recall a character named "Rem", which was the only way to do comments in primitive, benighted BASICs. (also fearlessly dating myself ;-) -- JoelNeely

: Nope, I think he was called RAM. He was an actuarial program. It really gave him a good feeling, helping people plan for their future needs. -- EdwardKiser
: REM was a character in the TV series of Logan's Run (played by Donald Moffat) --AlanFrancis
: Don't forget about ROM, the Space Knight

No need to date yourself, the CommodoreSixtyFour had both REM and TRON/TROFF. And that's not dating oneself? ;-) Well, at least you could range in age quite a bit.

I always say, if you can't date someone else, you may as well date yourself! Ho ho ho!

I'd wager dollars to donuts that the 64 didn't have those trace statements. The 128 did, and it's possible that some of the intermediate machines (+4/16) did too but I'm not up on their versions of BASIC.

You're right. If you want to trace, you can GoSub? to this line sometimes:

  1000 FORI=4096TO8192:PRINTCHR$(PEEK(I));:NEXT:RETURN

128 BASIC also had computed GOTO (A=100+I:GOTO A)

Steven Lisberger acknowledged in an interview about the original movie, which is on the Collector's Edition DVD, that people have thought "TRON" came from the "Trace on", "Trace off" commands "on computers", as he put it. He said the original inspiration actually came from the word "electron". -- MarkMiller?

Just a note here, after my recent purchase of the TRON 20th anniversary DVD I listened to the directors commentary in which they stated that while "Allen" was in fact named for Alan Kay the term TRON does not in fact refer to the acronym for Trace ON as at the time of filming they were not even aware that such a thing existed. It is actually a much less dramatic shortened version of the word elecTRON. I know it steals some of the nostalgia doesn't it?

I am TRON.

Seems you let yourself go a bit:

TRON - based on WKRP scene, illustrating ignorance is not necessarily bliss.

"NeuTRON , elecTRON, proTON"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhbqIJZ8wCM

TRON is Swahili for "Dude". Jeff Bridges is, "The Dude".