NOSTROMO BOOTUP SEQUENCE

ALIEN, 1979

After a long time in cryostasis, the crew and ship of the mineral ore carrier USS Nostromo are bought back to full alertness with simple white line art on a red screen, displaying the name and serial number of the ship as the AI operating system ‘mother’ wakes up. It switches to a classic, Dos-style green text on black, a cursor scanning lines of code to the sound of an old pin printer.

It was all done by a computer graphic artist named Bernard Lodge who began his career with the BBC. Lodge and former colleague Martin Lambie-nairn went on to herald a new era in computer-generated station idents and titles design in the UK television industry.