User

Kevin Flynn, user of Clu and Clu 2.

A User is a human being who operates a computer in the real world. If a user writes and compiles a computer program, the program, inhabiting the micro-civilization in the computer world, often looks exactly like his or her user counterpart in the real world, though exceptions exist for data pushers and programs written by multiple users. Users normally communicate with their programs by speaking or typing commands into their computers; on the other side of the screen, programs receive these impulses as "calls" which summon them to I/O towers to trade information with the other world. Many programs regard their users, both those who write programs and those who simply use them, as akin to gods, while others have been known to reject, deny, or attempt to manipulate them.

Sam Flynn, the son of Kevin Flynn

A user can enter the computer world through the extremely experimental method of digitization, which involves being scanned by a dual laser beam from a digitizing gun and literally disintegrating. The laser beam collects every atom of the digitzed object and converts its information into digital data. Through this process, the user is transported into the computer world and can interact with the computer programs physically. Users have experienced dizziness and disorientation upon entry into digital worlds.

Users in the computer world have special abilities beyond the capabilities of basic programs. They can regain and regenerate more energy than programs, transfer their energy to programs and other objects, and withstand much more damage than programs, and they have more complex data than programs.

The MCP believed that a user derezzed in the computer world would die there and never return to the real world; however, when Kevin Flynn leaped into the MCP's beam, an action which would have derezzed a program, he was instead kicked out of the system and back to the real world via the digitizing gun. Users digitized into the Grid can return to the real world via the portal, but only while it is open and while possessing the master key.

Notable users

Lora Bradley, Yori's user

• Kevin Flynn
• Alan Bradley
• Lora Bradley
• Ed Dillinger
• Roy Kleinberg
• Sam Flynn
• Walter Gibbs

Digitized users

Only two users are known to have been digitized:

• Kevin Flynn, the first user to be digitized, undergoing the process by force in 1982 and voluntary many times thereafter until his last digitization in 1989.
• Sam Flynn - the second user to be digitized, undergoing the process inadvertently in 2010 and returning to the real world one millicycle later.

TRON 2.0

In TRON 2.0 canon, some programs do not resemble their users; for example, Mercury's user turns out to be Alan Bradley. The game also introduced the possibility of the digitization process going wrong due to trouble with the digitization software or hardware, resulting in devastating effects upon users subjected to it.

Far more Users in the game's canon have been digitized than in mainstream TRON canon. Some were corrupted in the process. Others were digitized correctly, but never identified.

• Jet Bradley - The main protagonist of the TRON 2.0 game.
• Alan Bradley - Digitized against his will.
• J.D. Thorne - Was corrupted and turned into a virus; later died.
• Ms. Popoff - Was corrupted with Baza and Crown and turned into a monster virus; later died.
• Mr. Crown - Was corrupted with Baza and Popoff and turned into a monster virus; later died.
• Mr. Baza - Was corrupted with Popoff and Crown and turned into a monster virus; later died.
• Various DataWraiths.

There is a possibility, suggested by plot points and the contents of emails sent and received by various Users in the game, that Lora Bradley, Jet's mother, also underwent the digitization process:

• Lora died due to a misfire of the digitizing laser. It is not known whether the laser was active at the time.
• Emails detail rumours that Alan Bradley may have incorporated parts of Lora inside the computer after the digitizing accident into her program, Ma1a (and later successors Ma2a and Ma3a).
• Ma2a exhibits traits recognised as Lora's, suggesting she is connected with the program somehow.