
Silicon Cowboys - heywire
http://filmrise.com/silicon-cowboys/
======
voltagex_
No way to buy-to-own (and more importantly, download an offline copy), which
is a pity.

~~~
heywire
Yeah, I was bitten by this too. I had pre-ordered on iTunes using my iPhone
not thinking about how I might want to watch it. When it was released, I
wanted to watch it on my TV, which has a Chromecast. Needless to say, I
watched it on my iPhone and kicked myself for not ordering it on Google Play
instead.

I would have held out for DVD/BluRay, but I wanted to pre-order to support the
film and send a signal that I'm willing to pay for this type of content.

~~~
walterbell
We need an industry mechanism for cross-format "upgrades", i.e. upselling of
an existing customer. The challenge is that walled gardens don't want to share
customer information with content (media,software) creators, in case the
upsell/upgrade takes place outside the walled garden. Maybe they would allow
it with (a) consumer opt-in, (b) a cut of the upsell revenue, paid by the
creator to the first walled garden that introduces the customer to the
content.

This would be like advertising attribution, except for, you know, actual
purchases vs. possible influence on future purchases.

------
yuhong
I have been wondering for a while what if Intel bought Compaq back in 1991. If
you don't know, this is around the time Rod Canion left Compaq. Compaq seems
to have bought DEC back in 1998.

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webwanderings
Damn, those Compaq bios floppies! I can still feel the heavy weight of those
desktops!

------
ido
Also see "halt and catch fire", whose 1st season is roughly based on the
history of Compaq.

~~~
rasz_pl
and season 3 is roughly based on typical housewife's idea of what computers
(ibm mainframe booting into dos for example) and coders (fat smelly fratboys)
looks like.

------
20yrs_no_equity
I worked for Compaq for awhile in Houston. They built this fantastic houston
campus, full of high rise buildings surrounded by woods. It was my first
experience of a corporate tech campus, and while it was nothing compared to
the Ski Lodge mentality of later (still 1990s) Microsoft Campus it was
impressive to me.

At around the 2nd or 3rd story there was a tunnel between the buildings,
making a big ring. You could run/walk the tunnel all the way around the
campus, including thru the manufacturing area (yes, they actually made their
computers on site in Houston, this was back when you didn't get everything
made in asia.)

This company was the most paranoid I worked for. There were multiple levels of
code names. EG: the code name for our product that my manager used with me was
different than the code name that she used with her boss.[1] So she once
started talking about a product but was using the wrong code name and I was
completely confused! The product we were making was a printer driver. Nothing
you would think needed to be that secret (and at this point the printers were
increasingly commoditized- the job ended when Compaq got out of the business
entirely.) And in fact there were different code names for the different
versions, so I had to use multiple code names. We all knew the real product
name too, so it was kinda silly.

I remember the really rough searches we had to go thru - the Compaq security
guards seemed to be all assholes. Prototypes of todays TSA. You had to be
searched when coming in and when leaving. (we were going to smuggle software
out in a pocket??! didn't matter, there was manufacturing going on on the
premises, we could be stealing Intel CPUs.)

At one point I discovered a woman from my high school graduating class was
also working there (this was a big company at this point!) and we just met up
one day in the tunnels and went to lunch. (also a woman in tech, I tell you it
was no big deal until people started giving them a stigma.)

But it was great- in the stifling heat of Houston, to have that tunnel between
the buildings, that was air conditioned, you could go anywhere in the company
via those tunnels and you had a great view-- it was a sea of tree tops, with a
few high rises sticking up. (Compaq was up north of houston, away from the
Houston Sprawl.)

I wonder what happened to that campus.[2]

[1] Yes, back in the 1990s, females were about %50 of the tech population,
their proportions dropped when people started telling young girls that tech
was hostile to females. My mother is a programmer, for instance, and her team
was %60 female, %40 male- in part due to sexism, women were perceived as being
more appropriate for "sitting around typing all day" so she was able to hire
females more than "ruining a guys career" by hiring guys. But that was because
her company was old school. Tech companies like compaq were much better.)

[2] Here's a picture showing the tunnels I was talking about. Looks like 2nd
floor but I think it varied by building elevation:
[http://www.lagunabeachbikini.com/shoebox/1991/Compaq-1991/bi...](http://www.lagunabeachbikini.com/shoebox/1991/Compaq-1991/bin/images/large/DSC_5394.jpg)

~~~
walterbell
The tunnels are likely still there at the HP (whichever division owns PCs)
campus in Houston. They were there in late 2000s.

