Is this how Kitt saw Michael Knight?

[jup]

Think this is how Kitt saw Michael Knight?

https://youtu.be/QM0-ElspN8M

If I am reading this right, this is David Hasselhoff's True Survivor for Kung Fury.

And why does the video look and sound like that? Because, if I am reading this right, it's being played on a computer from the days of Knight Rider...a Commodore 64! (Though, it sounds like the RAM has been increased.) They weren't originally intended to do anything close to this.

As an example, here's a somewhat lame store demo designed to run in stores during Christmas of 1982. https://youtu.be/PuJ0W058wN0 (And, I was even trying to find an even lamer one.)

[Assasinge]

If I'm correct, the person edited the video to look like it's from the days of the commodore 64. From the looks of the comments he used a filter and audio editing. But what do you mean "is this how kitt saw Michael Knight?"

[Knight Racer]

I think he meant from how a computer can view the outside world and processes the graphics. When he's asking is this how Kitt processed the world around him with the level of graphics the 80`s had video processors and audio signal receivers.

[Assasinge]

Oh, well in that case all those scenes where KITT is scanning the area around him and whatnot, wouldn't that be the world around him?

[KITTfan]

Love that Commodore 64 version of the True Survivor
Perhaps KITT had at least the Amiga resolution to "see" Michael Knight and the whole world around him. Amiga developement started in the magical year 1982 as a "Lorraine" by the company called Hi-Toro before it became Commodore Amiga with talking feature in it's operating system I always wondered if Amiga's talking feature was inspired by Knight Rider
As the FLAG was so advanced in technology, maybe KITT indeed was also more advanced than Commodore 64 in graphics, cpu performance, memory capacity and all.
Had myself the Commodore 64 with tape drive. Mostly played games with it, sadly I didn't have the Knight Rider game for it but Miami Vice I had, also Out Run was one of my favourite games. Had also a drawing program called Koala Painter but it was difficult to draw with digital joystic
Sold it in 1991 and got myself the Amiga 500 which I still have in working condition

[Knight Racer]

If you've ever watched the Wes Craven film Deadly Friend, you'll remember the robot called Bee Bee. He had a view of the world but it was highly digitized. I always felt that was how Kitt might have viewed Michael inside the car and the world around from an AI point of view but everything from the scanner bringing into the dash monitor was in clear HD picture quality.

[Mechanicjay]

If you've ever watched the Wes Craven film Deadly Friend, you'll remember the robot called Bee Bee. He had a view of the world but it was highly digitized. I always felt that was how Kitt might have viewed Michael inside the car and the world around from an AI point of view but everything from the scanner bringing into the dash monitor was in clear HD picture quality.

Yes, that makes sense -- a straight analog feed from the scanner to the Human Display device. That same analog stream, could easily have also been fed into a digitizer as part of KITT's "scanner" sub-routines.

[Knight Racer]

Thank you for articulating what I couldn't Jup. Ready all that makes sense how kitt can see the world but when the same feed is fed through the dash board monitor it's in HD resolution.For instance, in Voo Doo Knight, at that time, Kitt was at his most advanced state-of-the-art evel of the entire series. Yet, when Michael got in the car, kitt couldn't tell that his driver wasn't himself for a while. He couldn't asses that Michael was dazed or the fact that he had an earing when he came back from that building visit. Or the fact that he no longer had his comn link since it was broken one last time in the series.

[jup]

I wasn't even thinking about VooDoo Knight as a potential example. However, I was thinking of two other scenes. One that I can't recall the name to was when Bonnie was showing an upgrade off to Michael and on KITT's screen was this computer enhanced visual of Michael's hand doing a bit of a rotational movement. Impressive in it's day. But, really primitive by our current standards. And then there is Killer KITT, where Kitt easily mistakes a Halloween grade face mask and a tape player as Bonnie and grants the viral maker access past all the defensive means to deliver a virus on a card to his dash circuits.

As for those super high resolution images on the dash and in the recorder... (KITT did have some ability to record that footage...even though recording the FM radio used a cassette tape. (At least KARR did that.)) I am reminded of one of the first episodes during a chase scene. That scanner was pulling in images from in front of the bumper and half a dozen other locations, instantly outdating the flying drone long before it was ever dreamed up. Why, that scanner is so advanced, we still don't have the tech (and probably never will) to pull it off. In fact, I prefer to classify that scanner's abilities in with the same tech that allowed that one woman to throw in a VHS tape to a VCR and show KITT pulling off one amazing stunt after another, as if this organization had planned out every event Michael and Kitt would be encountering, preparing cameras in key spots to know where Kitt would most likely be at. Sometimes, Hollywood Magic just has to be classified as "Hollywood Magic", as it's just too out there to ever be realistic.

In fact, it was kind of a Hollywood trope, back in those days. Take one sequence from Airwolf. Some people whom were involved in designing the high tech heli had inside information about a video storage unit and tapped into it, mentioning that even the pilot and co-pilot knew nothing about this system. It's suppose to record what the heli does while in operation. Instead, it's somehow flying a remote drone to view itself in flight and in action. (Or doing what KITT does and generate an atmospheric mirror to bounce a reflection off of so it's internal cameras can see the heli in flight.) From production standards; recycling footage. Realistically; a tech that will probably never exist, as how does one reform oxygen into a temporary floating mirror?

So, while I can buy that Kitt's front scanner has great resolution video, (seen most realistically in the pilot when KITT busts Michael out of the local prison.) I'm calling the super high resolution bit as leaning into Hollywood Magic...because it's just cheaper to recycle footage over trying to recreate realism for the sake of debating how Kitt might actually see the world.

I'm also reminded of the way a real self driving car worked, back in those days. (And yes, there was one real self driving van in the days of Knight Rider.) It was a van in order to house all the needed electronics, inside. And it used front cameras in a way that KITT's far more compact scanner would have worked. The computer looked at the world in front of it. (It was something like a whole three, five or seven feet in front of it's bumper.) Then proceeded to analyze the surface to detect that it was flat, drive-able and free of obstacles. It checked all that for a good thirty minutes before gently moving the van over the scanned area, immediately applying the brakes past the scanned zone and then immediately proceeded to inspect the next section. While it was realistically powered to the computers of the day, it was also proving that the fundamental notions of Kitt had plenty of grounding to reality...only that KITT was easily 30-50 years ahead of the curve on computing power.

Incidentally, the last time I saw anything about that self driving van project, it was being shown on American Scientific, cruising down an LA freeway at 70 MPH. Scarily, it was still looking only a few feet in front of where it was going and quite a few leaps behind the Google SmartCar. And there's only one way a van is going to go from 70 to 0 inside seven feet...

[Knight Racer]

Very true Jul. I remember watching Goliath and seeing the same footage from Deadly Maneuvers being watched by Garth. I also remember the scene you've describbed from Chariots Of Gold was playing footage of the car speeding through roads, crashing and jumping. Scenes that could have only happened if undercover operatives were to monitor the knight2000 very closely.

[Assasinge]

Well after reading all that jup, I'm reminded of several episodes where KITT is able to somehow pull up HD camera views in places where you can't even get the smallest camera to fit and move exactly like someone filming would. In fact, sometimes made no sense to the point where the I couldn't enjoy the episode and started criticizing it for being highly unrealistic. Go figure. Like in Goliath where KITT can pull up Goliath coming in the desert at a cinematic camera view, or when Garthe's mother was showing Garthe breaking into Red Bluff from all sorts of different camera views. Of course, back then nobody would have cared, really, but watching it now versus when I first saw it with my dad is no doubt a funny and different experience altogether.

[jup]

Heh, back then, there were some things that entertainment didn't care how obvious the illusion was. It kind of reminds me of how Hollywood perceived computer hacking to work.

LIST

10 PRINT "Hacking CIA computers...please stand by..."
20 PRINT "Connecting to circuits..."
30 PRINT "Connection made."
40 PRINT "Secret detail listings on Michael Knight..."

Hollywood's worst cyber threat back then was the Amish Virus. And...even KR is guilty of showing the high tech computer stuff like that above example.

So, of course the singular POV shot should pan about, track people's movements and splice between seven camera angles.