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Welcome To 1986: Inside 'Halt And Catch Fire's' High-Tech Time Machine (fastcompany.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the Mutiny-vs-Joe-MacMillan dept.

The third season of AMC's technology drama "Halt and Catch Fire" painstakingly recreated Silicon Valley and San Francisco in 1986. Long-time Slashdot reader harrymcc shares his first-person report: The new episodes...are rich with carefully-researched plot points, dialogue, and sets full of vintage technology (including a startup equipped with real Commodore 64s and a recreated IBM mainframe). I visited the soundstage in Atlanta where the producers have recreated Northern California in the 1980s, and spoke with the show's creators and stars about the loving attention they devote to getting things right.
Harry argues that the show "is in part about how we got from the past to the present," and writes that he saw several 5 1/4-inch floppy disks "including Memorex, 3M, and BASF FlexyDisk," plus "a manual for Frogger for the Atari 2600, a copy of a spreadsheet program known as MicroPro CalcStar...and countless other little pieces of history."

75 comments

  1. Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love this show! Lee Pace (who plays Joe) was the actor who played Thanos in "Guardians of the Galaxy"...

    1. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Meh, it's a soap opera that happens to include 1980s computer culture.. zzzz..

    2. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Guy+Harris · · Score: 4, Informative

      I love this show! Lee Pace (who plays Joe) was the actor who played Thanos in "Guardians of the Galaxy"...

      No, he played Ronan. Josh Brolin was Thanos.

    3. Re: Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Phusion · · Score: 1

      No, Lee didn't play thanos, he played the 'Cree fanatic' who worked with Thanos's children.

      --
      640k ought to be enough for anyone.
    4. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As opposed to the soap opera of "un-reality crap" ??
      At least you can learn interesting history.

      "But wait" you go, "I watch Sci-Fi, such as Dark Matter, Farscape, Fringe, Killjoys, etc."
      Well that's a soap opera in set in space.

      The question isn't "Is this a soap opera?"
      The question is: "Is this interesting?"

    5. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Yup. The main elements of soap opera are that it is a serial with a large primary cast of characters, where the primary (or even exclusive) focus is on inter-personal relationships and the emotional lives of those characters.

      If it's that kind of show, it's a soap opera.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    6. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The question is: "Is this interesting?"

      I think that was his point. Dressing it up with some artifacts from the 80's doesn't change the fact that it's yet another soap opera with the usual good/evil characters and story lines.

    7. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fortunately, real life doesn't have any of that inter-personal relationship stuff

    8. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by The_Revelation · · Score: 1

      The question actually might be 'is this a soap opera" purely on the grounds that you seem to have confused Sci-Fi's dramas with soap operas. Here is the clue - dramas typically revolve around a self contained episode. So, Big Bang Theory - Drama. Sure, there are some elements that might carry between episodes, like a character might get married etc, but the format of the show is that of a dramatization, not a soap opera. Here is a link to '30 of the best' soap operas - http://www.imdb.com/list/ls000... - as an indication, and what you are likely to find is that most successful soap operas are over 30 years in production at this stage, and are very well known brands, like Love and the Restless, Days of our Lives etc.

      That said, you are all wrong, because Halt and Catch Fire is also a dramatization. The story ends every season, in case you hadn't noticed. If you are still confused, here is a wikipedia article with a further break down - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    9. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh huh, you know there are only two kinds of TV programs right? Drama, and Comedy.

      Everything is a sub-genre of that. If it takes place on earth it's a "soap opera", if it takes place in space it's a "space opera" , if it takes place before 1900 it's "fantasy/medieval opera"

      That's all there is. Horror, suspense, scifi, porn, all soap operas. Comedy's only differ from Soap operas in the practical application of humor. A drama may find humor distracting and slow, so it's usually all placed on the idiot character. A comedy on the other hand, everyone is "in" on the joke except usually one person who is the audience's straight-man that stuff that is supposed to be funny is explained to or a "laugh track" is added to.

    10. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed it does not.

    11. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      At least you can learn interesting history.

      No you can't you can be presented with a strange grab bag of facts ascribed to the wrong subjects, at the wrong moments in the wrong context. Its fine enough for folks that mostly know the real story. Its a source of confusion for everyone else.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    12. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Which is why a lot of people do not like soap operas. Science Fiction offers an escape from our humdrum life to a more exciting one. While a soap opera we just relieve the awkwardness of our teenage/young adult life.

      However a good show needs to be strong characters and plot. Many shows while may had been initially popular due to strong character or plot, just don't have the same re-viewing popularity after it has been seen, because if it had a good plot but dull characters you don't care because you know what happens, or strong characters and weak plot you just don't care because there isn't anything driving what is going on.

      Soap Opera get a bad rap because of their history of being cheaply produced and written just so they can get many episodes out over a long period of time.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    13. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back when nobody knew who Lee Pace was...

    14. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Which is why a lot of people do not like soap operas...."
      Which is why a lot of _Males_ do not like Soap Operas. There is more than enough of that at home...
      This is not knocking Soaps... Maggie Smith is a whole lot of fun in Downton. When a Character, which Soaps are all about, is cleverly written and well portrayed, they can be fun. (My Sisters were outraged when "Dark Shadows" was preempted for the Watergate Hearings, because Barnabas Collins was _fun_, with two sharp pointy teeth.)

      "Soap Opera get a bad rap because of their history of being cheaply produced and written just so they can get many episodes out over a long period of time."
      Well, that is the legacy, from when they were sponsored by the producers of the kinds of products that Men simply don't care about; we just buy whatever is on sale.
      But Soaps _can_ be well made, witty and involving. The spectacular success of the original "Upstairs, Downstairs" in the States is proof of that.
      But...
      The makers of most current Soaps, and the money behind them, have hewn to the old Formula, which is utter contempt for their core audience- Women.

      "Halt And Catch Fire" _is_ Soapy, but it is also fun. It is well written, surprising in many ways, and...
      Mackenzie Davis is a Babe. Awkward, clumsy, poorly clothed and socially inept... but still a Babe.

      In 1986, I was in There. Berkeley UNIX, Bit Slice Processing, coding in Assembly, and of course, USENET. The Women were few, but always interesting.
      Far too few Babes...

      The Best Captcha so far that I have come across here; I have long forgotten my low five digit Slashdot Login:
      Captcha: elders

      (This almost makes me want to mention the BSD Demon Babe, who made her own costumes, and prowled UNIX Conventions and Trade Shows. A Real Babe.)

    15. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTH... Why TH not!
      Ceren:
      http://www.bishopston.com/jamie/misc/bsd-daemonette/daemonbabe.jpg

      I have no real knowledge of just what part she played in later BSD OS Development; I just met her at a couple of Geek parties, where she very much held her own, and was held somewhat in awe by others.

      Mackenzie Davis, in that costume...

      I'll be in my bunk.

      New Captcha: bowels
      (Rolling On The Ceiling, Laughing.)

    16. Re:Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in by markstrelecki · · Score: 1

      Thanos is actually played by JOSH BROLIN and will appear again in the Infinity War two-parter starting in 2017.

      --
      Computing and Programming Since 1975 The Best Kept Secret in Technical Support Master of the Bare Metal Clean Install
  2. So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got a C64 right here on my desk. Saw it on the pile of electronics that was supposed to go to the dump and grabbed it.

    People who work in recycling have no idea what's rare and what's common. All C64s should be saved, if only to get the SID ICs in them. No emulator has been able to faithfully reproduce the audio coming out of those.

    1. Re:So what? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      "if only to get the SID ICs in them. No emulator has been able to faithfully reproduce the audio coming out of those."

      Yeah, those 3 oscillators could wind right through your head.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    2. Re: So what? by NCG_Mike · · Score: 1

      I've got a C64 under the TV with a SD card attached. DropZone still owns.

    3. Re:So what? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      i was lucky enough to be getting my CCNA back in 01 at the same time the school was going to throw out its c64 equipment. i brought home pretty much an entire mini lab, a dozen c64s, a c128D 2 monitors, a dozen diskdrives a 300 baud modem and 2 tall dressers full of manuals another full of software. not to menton joysticks and game pads.

      i still have it all 15 years later,

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    4. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You clearly have no idea how the SID works.

    5. Re: So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a shame that all of it will be tossed in the trash bin as soon as you're not able to take care of yourself.

    6. Re:So what? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I have four SX-64s that the lab at work was throwing out.

      I actually used one of them for a test in the lab in about 2007.

    7. Re:So what? by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Sorry, didn't mean to disparage your pet rock. /snark

      Oh, I have a good general idea, having worked with early Moogs, Oberheims, Sequential Circuits, Yamahas, etc. Apparently my comments may have gone the wrong way with some. I loved the SID, enjoyed making music with it. And the graphics programs that ran on sound were great for the time. Eventually I bypassed the SID with a custom MIDI rig to an SC 6-TRAK, and did some great stuff with my C64 "music workstation".

      Anyways, sorry to ruffle any fans feathers. And, fwiw, maybe I did forget details of an obsolete chip of old comp from 30 some years ago. Did it not have 3 oscillators? They had unique sounds when they beat off of each other.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    8. Re:So what? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      nice, sometimes i break out some old games, q bert and whatnot are alot of fun on the orange screen

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  3. Neckbeard here... by sysrammer · · Score: 1

    Anyone seen my 1541 floopies?

    --
    His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    1. Re:Neckbeard here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Your drive still works? Mine died after playing Bicycle Built for Two a few too many times.

  4. known as MicroPro CalcStar...and countless other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    History? I still use those on my CP/M machine.

  5. So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I can open a cupboard and pull out a real C64 with 5 1/4-inch floppy disks, although I favored Verbatim.

    1. Re:So? by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Informative

      No screenshots I've seen from that show look like Silicon Valley in the 80s. At best they look like a San Francisco hipsters idea of what it was like. Seriously, brick buildings in Silicon Valley?

    2. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The show started in Dallas. Maybe the stills you saw were from those episodes.

    3. Re: So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everything is usually stucco, wooden panel, some kind of wooden tiles or maybe stones arranged in geometric patterns (going by North Mathilda Avenue).

    4. Re: So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes! Someone finally said it....the hipsters had to many hipstergasms while researching this thanks to being toddlers or not even being born in this era & yearning/hipstergasming so hard they ruined what potentially could have been an ok TV show...lol

    5. Re:So? by a_n_d_e_r_s · · Score: 2

      First 2 seasons they where based in texas. Its mirroring the fact that Compaq was an off-shoot from Texas intruments. Compaq was the first company that reverse engineered the BIOS.

      --
      Just saying it like it are.
    6. Re:So? by Rob+Y. · · Score: 2

      It's my impression that Compaq reversed engineered the BIOS with some nod-and-wink help from Microsoft in order to wrest the PC business away from IBM.

      This show simply implies they were building a better clone, and has nothing to do with reverse engineering the BIOS. In fact, there's a subplot about 'building a new OS that understands natural language commands'. ...and then the Mac happens. So, it's a bit of a mishmash of everything that was going on at the time. Now they're trying to compete with Compuserv. Go figure. Fun fact: a colleague of mine founded ECHO (a glorified BBS / 'online community') at about that time. She was non-technical, so I don't know how off the shelf the software for such things was at the time...

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
  6. So it's like Mr. Robot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Horribly over-researched with way too much expository dialog about computers that "show what they know" even though real tech people never talk like that? Sounds like a real winner.

  7. So, soap opera + '80s junk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IT Crowd = soap opera + '90s junk.

    Big Bang Theory = soap opera + science references.

    Holby city = soap opera + stretchers and fake blood.

    etc.

    A themed soap opera is fun, but being able to amass a historical enthusiast's collection of contemporary gear does not make it "authentic" - just fun + familiar props.

    It's be like kitting out Red Dwarf with British home computers from the '80s - it'd fit with the kitschy theme but it would still be watchable because the writing was fucking hilarious, not because there are Acorn electrons and ZX Spectrums everywhere. If I want that, I'll go into my garage - and that'll also have MicroVAXen and a PDP-8-on-a-chip DECmate III and the sense of noise and power usage and time and engineering beauty that won't be appreciated in a soap opera but it doesn't matter because it's a soap opera.

    1. Re: So, soap opera + '80s junk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Say soap opera more and maybe it will make sense. Is creating a story and depicting relationships between human beings a soap opera? Would you be more entertained by a still shot of each important piece of tech in history? That way you could tell the whole world your thoughts on each one and not be bothered by a tiresome plot or character building.

      I hope you create a show someday... it would be so very exciting I'm sure.

    2. Re:So, soap opera + '80s junk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why the fuck are people saying soap opera for these types of show. Soap operas are open narratives with story arcs that cross over many episodes. Most of the shows mentioned in this topic all have close story lines usually stitched up before the end of each episode. Seriously, know the fucking difference.

  8. My father sold AS/400s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and made a killing doing so. Big blue was VERY good to him right down to the Rolex when he retired. /humblebrag

  9. No perfect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Carefully researched but they still have a Model M keyboard place with a PC/XT main unit and a mystery monitor. The Model M existed in '86, but don't speak the same language. (Season 2 Ep 1 at the 23 min mark)

    1. Re:No perfect by zwarte+piet · · Score: 1

      Typing this on a '88 model M. No converters needed if your computer has a regular ps/2 port.

    2. Re:No perfect by zwarte+piet · · Score: 1

      oops reading difficult. Yeah, need model F or compatible for a pc/xt.

  10. Who are the main characters based on by jader3rd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I started watching Halt and Catch Fire, but it never really held my interest. I don't think that I made it past the 5th episode. The portends to be based on 1980's experiences, but I can't think of anyone with whom they could base the main characters off of.

    1. Re:Who are the main characters based on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The first season had a Jobs and Wozniak vibe mixed with a bit of storyline from "Soul of a new Machine". It was almost interesting. Predictably it has decided to promote a feminist agenda because, you know, that's the in-thing these days. Next we're likely to get a full-on soap opera by watching a marriage fall apart and the emotional fallout. Boring shit.

    2. Re:Who are the main characters based on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also 80's were painful. As much as I loved Simons' basic, Eilte or Last Ninja I'm very glad that c64's times are over. It was a major PITA with the cassettes, the BASIC, the everything.
      Star Trek and Star Wars is back and those are the only things that worth salvaging from the 80's.

    3. Re:Who are the main characters based on by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      The portends to be based on 1980's experiences, ...

      Not mine. From 1985-87, while still in school, I worked on developing automatic-programming code on a Xerox 1108 (Dandelion) in InterLISP-D. And ported Franz LISP from 4.3 BSD on a VAX 785 to SunOS on a Sun-3 (I believe). After graduating, I later went to work at NASA Langley in 1988 as a sysadmin for their Convex and Cray (2 and YMP) systems.

      I watched most (maybe all) of the first season of "Halt and Catch Fire" and was pretty bored. Never went back.

      Although... my micro-programming / assembly class was on IBM/Intel PCs because the IBM 360 had actually caught fire the previous semester. Don't know if it halted first.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    4. Re:Who are the main characters based on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The same could almost be said about the supposed "hardware" they were working on. Is he the visionary? Is that one the engineer? The lines eventually blurred that I couldn't commit to watching it like I did with Breaking Bad

    5. Re:Who are the main characters based on by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

      Does it matter that the characters are based on real people from the 80's? My main criteria is that the characters are compelling in some way and their environment is consistent.

      FWIW, if you only watched the first 5 episodes maybe give it a second look. They've reworked the show from "Don Draper in tech" to plucky start up vs well funded former colleague.

    6. Re:Who are the main characters based on by jader3rd · · Score: 1

      Does it matter that the characters are based on real people from the 80's?

      Kind of, yes. I know that the show is fictional, and it never says "based off of real experiences," but it gives the vibe that it is at least based off of real peoples experiences. But since I can't think of anyone having similar experiences in that time setting, it bothered me enough that the characters weren't consistent with their setting, such that all of the self inflicted drama never really garnered my interest.

    7. Re:Who are the main characters based on by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

      I started watching Halt and Catch Fire, but it never really held my interest. I don't think that I made it past the 5th episode. The portends to be based on 1980's experiences, but I can't think of anyone with whom they could base the main characters off of.

      They didn't. It's based on real events that did happen, but like Silicon Valley, it features a set of characters who are basically living through the home computing boom of the 80s. There are some real life similarities, but I think they were done to tell more interesting side stories that happened for real that people may not know about,

      Season 1 was about developing an IBM PC clone and basically delves into the design and coding of the most important part, the BIOS. They also explore side threads like a friendly computer that greets you and all that, bookending with the discovery of the Macintosh demo and its graphics.

      Season 2 was developing an online service, timesharing systems, and worms (a recount of the Morris worm).

      Season 3 is just developing, and it's too early to tell what stores it may tell.

      It's less about real life 1980s, and more about a bunch of people doing tech stuff during the 1980s, completely independently of what happened. Sometimes they tell an interesting story like Senaris (Morris worm), which given how limited internet connectivity was in the 1980s, most people blew right past, but here it is retold (a programming bug caused it to spread over and over again).

      Take it more for the nostalgia of what the 80s were like in the tech industry and less about real history. And enjoy it - Season 1 didn't get great ratings, but AMC felt it had potential and gave it a season 2. Season 2 had terrible ratings and for some reason or other, AMC renewed it. Chances are, though, Season 3 is it. (Let's say Walking Dead is penthouse. Halt and Catch Fire is somewhere in sub-basement level 10, only accessible via ladder from a dark corner of the underground parking lot because that's where someone decided to put a storage rack.

    8. Re:Who are the main characters based on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Season 1 was basically about creating an "IBM" Clone, so the storyline pulls details from Compaq, but then throws a few details that is more in line with the creation of the Apple Lisa than anything else. It ends with a truck load of computers being torched.

      Season 2 is likely a lot more familiar to the /. crowd, as it has all the things you remember about the early BBS era (that I was fortunate to see, but the area I lived in lacked any BBS, so long distance calls boo, so I created my own.) The *spoiler* they eventually created the first cable modem... just to cheat a demonstration. It ends with a virus destroying everything in front investors.

      So everything in the show feels authentic enough that I'm not wanting to scream profanties at the screen when something is wrong, because the details that they get wrong are anachronisms that are off by just enough to get noticed, but not enough to go "that is too stupid", like season 2 is supposed to take place in what is approximately 1984, So you can hear the Nintendo in the background of one scene. Not enough of a big deal is being made over it (pretty much everyone who saw one between 1983 and 1989 decided that the home PC was not a games machine.)

    9. Re:Who are the main characters based on by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Take it more for the nostalgia of what the 80s were like in the tech industry and less about real history. And enjoy it - Season 1 didn't get great ratings, but AMC felt it had potential and gave it a season 2. Season 2 had terrible ratings and for some reason or other, AMC renewed it.

      Meh, as much as I like tech, these kind of drama shows about tech history don't translate into good entertainment. A documentary like Triump of the Nerds is more informative and entertaining to watch.

    10. Re:Who are the main characters based on by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      I have to agree, I have never cared for the spaghetti western and the spaghetti tech story isn't really any better. The real events are plenty interesting and certainly can be dramatized with some little interpersonal side stories, and self reflection history obviously did not record without veering to pure fiction. You can also go the strait facts documentary route like "Triumph of the Nerds", which as far as docs go probably belongs up there with the "The Civil War" in terms of excellence.

      Treating history as a grab bag of events and ascribing them to different people, and simply ignoring the greater context and historical backdrop does not compelling story telling make. Its confusing, and it usually feels hackney because its to close to reality to suspend disbelief your brain therefore is keeps pulling in everything else you know and remember from that time and saying "but this would never have happened because..."

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    11. Re:Who are the main characters based on by jader3rd · · Score: 1

      Its confusing, and it usually feels hackney because its to close to reality to suspend disbelief your brain therefore is keeps pulling in everything else you know and remember from that time and saying "but this would never have happened because..."

      That could be why I wasn't finding it entertaining; it's running into an uncanny valley issue in my head. But instead of with graphics, with the main characters.

    12. Re:Who are the main characters based on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly this. It could have been so much more.

    13. Re:Who are the main characters based on by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's good that AMC are willing to support shows that might not be instant mega hits but have potential for either growth or long term cult status. Like Star Trek. It's got the point where I don't watch new stuff on channels like Fox because they tend to kill shows before the first season is even over if the ratings aren't stellar, and I hate unfinished stories. HBO seem to have lead the way with developing shows and other channels are now following.

      HACF is an interesting show, good characters, with some nice retro tech even if it isn't 100% accurate (it's way better than most). The only thing that really bugs me is that Cameron can't type. She uses the hunt-and-peck method with two fingers, and has to keep flicking her gaze back and forth between the keyboard and the screen. She's supposed to be a great coder, you would think they would have told the actor to fake it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  11. Programming on the C64 hardware by andrewa · · Score: 2

    When I was programming commercial games on the C64 I eventually used a cross-development system, which was a piece of hardware attached to some cruddy PC clone, an Apricot iirc... Basically it used an interface card to the target computer (I also occasionally did Spectrum and Amstrad CPC/Schneider stuff, but mostly C64). It was horribly expensive, about £2000, and that was before purchasing a HDD... Would be interested to see if this show features that development system, but I'm highly unlikely to watch it, I still haven't watched Silicon Valley or Mr. Robot yet...

    --
    :(){ :|:& };:
    1. Re:Programming on the C64 hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >When I was programming commercial games on the C64...

      Thank you. Thank you so much for a beautiful childhood, (and the motivation to learn code myself).

  12. I'm sorry... Can that really be called research? by chaoskitty · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The first three seconds of the (longer) trailer of the first season lost me with:

    LOADHIGH A:/SYS/BIOS

    PRINT /D:LPT1 /A:/SYS/BIOS

    What the hell is this? TI-RTOS? Nope. CP/M, or its bastardized cousin, PC/DOS? Nope. Sorry - with a name like "Halt and Catch Fire", I'd have expected something better than stupid TV writer gibberish.

  13. Re:I'm sorry... Can that really be called research by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder where my Brother PC is, they said it was incompatible with everything.

  14. I couldn't get past the first episode by Casandro · · Score: 2

    I mean realism is not everything with those shows, but it hurts when they include segments that make no sense in he context and are historically inaccurate.

    I'm specifically talking about the "reverse engineering the IBM PC" bit. That bit involved reading a PROM with switches and LEDs... those LEDs came in colours unimaginable back in the 1980s. That wouldn't be bad if the whole scene would have made no sense. You can read out that PROM with the BASIC Interpreter provided with the computer... and the rest was documented in the manuals. The IBM PC was, essentially, open source (but not free). That's why it áfas to popular. There was no need to reverse engineer.

    So spending a large part of your episode showing something that made no sense... and showing that very badly, kinda killed it for me.

    I don't know how the other episodes went, but this kinda pissed me off. In a time where we have TV series like Silicon Valley or Mr Robot we shouldn't applaud a props guy ordering some C-64s.

    1. Re:I couldn't get past the first episode by HBI · · Score: 1

      And it was open like that because it was directly competing with CP/M systems which generally were same/same - source of the BIOS readily available and easily dumpable from the system's ROM.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    2. Re:I couldn't get past the first episode by Casandro · · Score: 1

      Well there was no way to prevent dumping the ROM on those machines. And the schematics were obviously there to signal that the machines are maintainable. Also back then virtually any electronic device came with its schematics.

  15. So Big Bang Theory for Tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    '"The writers do their homework so well, and I do a different kind of homework," says Bishé. "I tried to understand the computer stuff, until I realized that my job isn’t to try to understand the computer stuff. My job is to understand the people who understand the computer stuff."'

  16. Re:Only LUDDITES watch Halt & Catch Fire. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Helll yes, who needs this Silicon Valley 80s crap when APPS

    app app aPpppassssss APPSs

  17. It rings true to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Despite what some of you are seeing as "technical flaws", I react to this series in a different way. This takes me back to what it was like for me in the 1980s. All the anxiety and frustration of trying to learn a new technology while competition is changing the rules of the game and the ground is moving under your feet as you try to move ahead, that is very real and fresh to me.

    All the internal politics and bickering that went on, trying to figure out which OS will win and which one should I invest my time and energy in. Back in the day, I scrambled trying to learn CP/M, TRS-DOS, MS/PC-DOS, Xenix and UNIX. Which programming language to learn? Assembly? Which chip? 6502? 6809? 8080? 8086? C? GW-BASIC? Turbo Pascal?

    The series effectively conveys trying to come to grips with the very different technology landscape that was available then. I remember having a 300bps modem and connecting to an online service called Bix somewhere in Africa. The upgrade to 1200bps was wow! 9600bps was amazing. I ran all my company's email through a 9600bps modem.

    It also deals importantly with the impact of all this stress on the human interactions. Friendships, alliances, wars, adultery, being outcast, finding community, getting sick. Actually, Gordon's getting sick rings especially true to me. There is such a thing as overwork which damages your health.

    It also deals with the idea of technology as a form of addiction. These characters cannot envision a life without technology. Even at what is to us now, such a limited level of sophistication, the technology consumes their whole lives. Gordon and Donna struggle to have a stable life with their children. I remember having to say to myself, "That's it. No more late nights. I'm going home to my daughters".

    That is what is real about this series to me. It accurately reflects the impact of technology on the lives/relationships of the people involved.

    I see the technical errors too. I lived through that era, migrating from 8bit to 16bit, then from 16bit to 32bit. I remember waiting for the goddamm 80386 to come down in price so I could get my hands on one.

    1. Re:It rings true to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yeah, I enjoyed the show too. I see a lot of people bitching about this and that but I don't see anyone else making a show about geeks that has geek appeal. I lived through those days too and got the same sense of nostalgia.

      That's why you got my mod points.

  18. Re:I'm sorry... Can that really be called research by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

    The first three seconds of the (longer) trailer of the first season lost me with:

    LOADHIGH A:/SYS/BIOS

    PRINT /D:LPT1 /A:/SYS/BIOS

    What the hell is this? TI-RTOS? Nope. CP/M, or its bastardized cousin, PC/DOS? Nope. Sorry - with a name like "Halt and Catch Fire", I'd have expected something better than stupid TV writer gibberish.

    hell Yah. Star Trek lost me at the whole faster than light space travel thing, Firefly with English and Chinese speaking human beings in a distant solar system... That whole "Willing suspension of disbelief" thing is overrated...

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  19. Show's title is offputting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Halt and Catch Fire? Am I missing something 'attractive' about the title? It sounds very offputting and threatening.
    More motivational titles would be Running On Fire, or Hot Start, or just Catching Fire. But the two words Halt and Fire together just sound suicidal.
    Will not watch.

    1. Re:Show's title is offputting by PixelPusher1532 · · Score: 1

      Halt and Catch Fire? Am I missing something 'attractive' about the title?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  20. ORLY? by sootman · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised that NONE of the designers on the show were aware that the most recognizable and maligned font of all time, Comic Sans (shown in this image http://b.fastcompany.net/multi... ), wasn't invented until 1994.

    Perfection is hard.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  21. Unwatchable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone who has watched a few episodes of this show and actually did any kind of low-level "computering" in the 80's or even 90's would be as frustrated as I am. A show about tech people doing tech things on techy stuff should get the tech correct. Mr Robot does the best job of anything I've ever seen on TV or film (not perfect, but I give it a 9 out of 10). The most realistic and interesting characters were the CEO guy and the engineer's wife, yet they focus on the stupid sales guy (gay or not?) and the stupid girl programmer (so believable).