Posted on 06/10/2014 5:13:00 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Oscilloscopes! Hexadecimal code! 1980s Porsches! This is the world of AMC’s newest period piece, Halt and Catch Fire, which debuted June 1 (watch the full pilot episode here). The network’s next great hope for another Mad Men or Breaking Bad, Halt dives deep into the nerdy early days of the PC, hoping Sunday night TV viewers will go as gaga for Big Blue as they did for Blue Sky.
The show transports us back to a fictional 1983, when personal computing was booming in Texas’ Silicon Prairie. We follow a slick visionary, a schmuck engineer, and a wonder-kid coder as they team up to infiltrate and subvert that world.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
I bought my first computer, and IBM PC back in April of 1983. With the printer and monitor the entire system cost me over $6,000.
Just to show you how prices have fallen in the industry, I just bought a Thinkpad last month, which is easily 10 times faster with 1,000 times more storage capacity, for $650.
Word was Gary Kildell blew off the big meeting with IBM.
I remember when I managed one of the first retail computer stores in Boston in 1980 where we sold Apple and we had former DEC programmers crack open the CP/M code to have it run on Apple so we could sell Wordstar along with Visicalc to accounting firms.
That was a lawsuit dodged.
watched a few minutes of the start.
disliked the characters, nothing redeemable, stopped and deleted.
Complete waste of time.
A fake command used as a title to a series that is best left in the bargain bin software box.
“TURN” started off slowly and then ramped up to become a no-miss program for me.
***
My biggest complaint is the fact that we have to “rewind” to catch some of the dialogue. Most annoying. Second complaint is the celebration of adultery.
I don’t know if I will watch season 2.
Pretty sobering that the 1980s have become the old days.
IIRC, he actually FLEW off -- in his private plane -- instead of meeting with IBM.
Not the brightest decision he ever made...
But the NDA issue seems to be the "official" story.
Never met the man but I expect the former.
It seems there’s a lot of that mumbling going on when actors deliver their lines. I wondered if I was the only one who thought so. My hearing is fine, but yes, I do find I have to rewind.
Unfortunately the ratings for “TURN” weren’t very good, so unless AMC wants to give it another chance, I don’t know if it will return. Meanwhile, “Honey Boo-Boo” continues to be a ratings winner....
But at the time I sure liked it.
Check out “Fargo.”
Thanks for the recommend
We sold a lot of accounting packages that consisted of an Apple II, Visicalc, Wordstar, Corvus 5mb HD and Spinwriter letter quality printer. Price was just south of 9 grand.
Ah, remember all of those well with the exception of the Corvus. I didn't jump on the HD wagon until the Davong which I recall was about 5Mb and about $5k.
And I just recalled a fond memory not only of serial printers in general but also the giant enclosures used for the Spinwriter in an office setting. Those were extremely LOUD suckers to be sure.
Yeah they screamed at 55 cps. You could replenish whole reefs with them now.
THE WORLD’S FIRST LOW TECHNOLOGY ARTIFICAL REEF
The funny thing is I never had a problem with those CMI drives.
That's bringing me back when I was stuck at a Computerland that sold AT's on the grey market by getting them without the HD and substituting.
IBM got the wind of this and almost yanked Comperland's distribution rights.
I like the show,, and still believe there is potential for a show showing the early days here in SV..
I hear the 80’s were rockin’ out here...
I've noticed that too. I suspect it's a combination of trying to mimic the authentic British speech of the time plus they're often speaking in hushed voices, almost a whisper. Very hard to comprehend at times.
That's a good point. Since TURN was about a spy ring, there was necessarily a lot of hushed speaking.
bkmk
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
