This is a superb set of resources for anyone interested in the history of computing in the 80s and 90s. I'd go so far as to say it's great even if you don't intend to watch the show (although you should!). I wish this had existed back when I was teaching history of technology.
One of the best decisions the show made was to set the series at a series of fictitious minor companies and startups struggling down there in the trenches of the computer revolution without ever quite making it big. This avoids the trap of teleology and gives you a sense of how things could easily have turned out differently. It is why the show is so much better as both computing history and drama than all those films about Apple or Steve Jobs and the rest that tediously rehash the same stories of the winners. (Although one of the main characters, Joe Macmillan, has some Jobs-like character features. I do not mean this as a compliment.)
I have never seen such an amazing and accurate depiction of how people deal with grief as what this show presents. Beyond the computing history aspects of it, which touch upon some esoteric but important epochs, the human drama really impressed me by season 4.
Who remembers the short-lived Lucasfilm project 'Habitat'? Accurately rendered in the show as the interactive social network.
I completely agree. For me, the zenith was season 3, but any season of HCF was the closer to catching on film what being in a startup is like than any other show I've seen.
I really liked the show for many of the things you mentioned. I recommend it every now and then to friends or coworkers because I haven't met a single person yet who's seen that show. Very underrated.
My only gripe was that it seemed in season one, they tried a bit too hard to add drama to the show to appeal to a broader audience that isn't that interested in the technical stuff. Especially Joe Macmillan just felt over the top and just not credible at times. They made up for it in season two though, adding a lot of back-story for him and making him just more consistent in general. But even then, season one is still the best imo.
I read somewhere that the network was trying to create a new Mad Men, which fits a lot with the way Joe McMillian is portrayed. Thank god they went the other way: The drama was much better with the more relatable characters (the two female leads especially), and the technological narrative ended up more interesting without a Don Draper-like messianic figure involved.
I usually don't really read about the shows I watch, I just go with it. So I saw it as Joe needing to get something out of his system, and he evolves after that. Though he never really stops being Joe. It worked for me.
Pirates was so great, entertaining, and generally informative if you knew nothing about the subject even though it wasn't totally accurate. But at the time, what other comedy, drama would you find about the history of the personal computer? There was literally nothing else like it out there and very little else like it since.
I was a teen who knew little about the history about personal computers when I first saw it. I had just gotten my Windows 95 machine, my first computer and was stoked cause I paid for a third of it with my own money from working odd jobs. My mom paid the rest.
Anyways, I found the subject matter engaging so I have a fond place for that movie.
The funniest thing about "Pirates" to me is how it was made at a time when it seemed Microsoft had "beaten" Apple and it showed Jobs learning to accept his defeat.
I didn't watch (yet) Halt and Catch Fire, but given your description, I think you would like Silicon Valley too. There the protagonist has a big idea but struggles to make it a real product. Also the jokes told there make it both really funny and interesting, because there's always something true about them.
I completely agree. Seasons 2,3,4 were great, but the first one was amazing on how it portrayed the feel of the time, the struggle, everything. They could have stopped at season 1 and I wouldn't have been disappointed.
I suggest you to continue watching all others seasons if I can give you an advise :).
That's right, to me the first serie is amazing, by the way the other ones aren't bad too. I appreciate in HCF the explanation of a company life where problems can happens in any time, fight between people and the risks and possibilities to fail
Agree. I've always wondered that if maybe I'd just been born 10 years earlier, if I might have been involved in some of this stuff instead of just a kid playing with the stuff they made. Watching it was a sort of reverse-vicarious experience.
One of the best decisions the show made was to set the series at a series of fictitious minor companies and startups struggling down there in the trenches of the computer revolution without ever quite making it big. This avoids the trap of teleology and gives you a sense of how things could easily have turned out differently. It is why the show is so much better as both computing history and drama than all those films about Apple or Steve Jobs and the rest that tediously rehash the same stories of the winners. (Although one of the main characters, Joe Macmillan, has some Jobs-like character features. I do not mean this as a compliment.)