
PBS’s “Silicon Valley” to Debut Tonight - e1ven
http://allthingsd.com/20130205/a-little-slice-of-geek-history-pbs-silicon-valley-set-to-debut-tonight-video/?reflink=ATD_myyahoo
======
alaskamiller
In another 5 years they'll finally get around to producing a show about
Silicon Valley now.

About how the silicon became fabless and offshored. About how Indians took
over Koreatown, how all the buildings along the 101 stretch went up then
empty.

About how the pioneers settled down while the goldrushers came in wanting a
piece in San Francisco even though the 49ers came down to Santa Clara. About
how the old campuses went away and got replaced by higher density condos since
no one could afford houses.

About how there were the rich and the other half scrambled. About what happens
in the middle of the night in those Sunnyvale corporate parks.

About how it's just really bitter and sweet as home.

~~~
doktrin
> _About what happens in the middle of the night in those corporate parks_

Your office park sounds much more interesting than mine (Menlo). After 9 PM
it's crickets all the way down.

~~~
PakG1
What makes you think that it's anything interesting? Maybe it's more like a
_Waiting for Godot_ deal. The fact that you know there are crickets there
would indicate that you are there doing _something_. :)

------
rmason
Saw an early screening in Ann Arbor a few months back. It's definitely worth
watching to get an idea of how Silicon Valley was built.

Also worth watching is Steve Blank's secret history of Silicon Valley
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo>

------
jbrowning
For those of you who missed the premier tonight like me, don't despair: the
full episode will be streaming at pbs.org tomorrow:

[https://twitter.com/AmExperiencePBS/status/29901343642211123...](https://twitter.com/AmExperiencePBS/status/299013436422111232)

------
hyperberry
The Kauffman Foundation + STL IT Entrepreneurs Network (iten.org) hosted an
early screening of this film at Washington University in St. Louis a couple
months ago. I was fortunate to see it.

The movie offers an inside look at the earliest days of Si Valley, including
the "Traitorous Eight" who left Shockley to form Fairchild Semiconductor.
After that they focus mainly on the 70s-80s with a bunch of great anecdotes
about Apple/Steve Jobs and Atari.

Worth watching IMO.

------
wallerj77
looks good - chapter one is already up including some other bonus videos on
the PBS site here:

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/>

~~~
dudurocha
It is the complete episode?

~~~
ckrailo
Nope, only a 16 minute preview. :(

------
mercuryrising
That was a really good show! I took a microelectronic fabrication course in
school, and the Deal-Grove model [1] was one of the things we studied. Cool to
see the people who discovered the reasons for the weird things that happen in
microelectronics.

It's amazing how interesting of a story can be told with mainly pictures and
old video. No special effects, just the raw meat of the story of the people
who made our data world happen.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deal%E2%80%93Grove_model>

------
larrys
NY Times review:

[http://tv.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/arts/television/silicon-
val...](http://tv.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/arts/television/silicon-valley-on-
american-experience-on-pbs.html?_r=0)

------
confluence
_> [William Shockley's] mother had lived there [Santa Clara Valley] for years
- and land prices where cheap._

Just goes to show how random things like these are. A random physicist, comes
home, starts a small silicon chip shop, and accidentally helps cause what you
see in Silicon Valley today.

Reminds me of this: <http://vimeo.com/52268132#t=824>

------
jmcgough
is there any way to view it without a television?

~~~
stch2
You can always steal it from thepiratebay/megaconz

~~~
wavesounds
I dont see how this is stealing - PBS is funded by our tax dollars and owned
by the public

~~~
Itaxpica
Which is why, as thefreeman points out above, its legitimately available
online for free.

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/>

~~~
jaytaylor
It looks to me like it costs $19.99
<http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=18789896>

~~~
wavesounds
Yeah only the first 15 minutes are on their website. No idea why people who
own a tv who can watch the whole thing and people who only own a computer only
get 15 minutes.

~~~
brewdad
If it's like most other PBS shows, tomorrow it will be available in its
entirety. They want you to watch it on your television if possible, then give
you the opportunity to see it online after it's aired. It may only be
available online for a limited time though, so don't procrastinate too long.

------
hkmurakami
I tried in vain to figure out what time of day this will be airing on the West
Coast, since I'm at the office and can't check the show schedule. Hopefully I
can get home early enough to record a re-run :(.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
At least in Seattle, it's airing at 9PM.

If you have Comcast and a DVR, I recommend checking out their _What's On_ app,
which lets you remotely schedule stuff for your DVR to record.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whats-on-by-comcast-
labs/id5...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whats-on-by-comcast-
labs/id555500250?mt=8)

~~~
hkmurakami
Unfortunately I have Dish, and since they usually don't adjust for time zones,
that probably means that it airs at 6pm for me. Thanks for the info; hopefully
I can catch the rerun ><

------
unreal37
I stumbled upon this accidentally, and was riveted. Nice to see Andy Grove and
Gordon Moore talking about the old days, pre-Intel. Highly recommended.

------
bennyg
Starts in under 5. Central Timezone here.

