AMC: Halt and Catch Fire

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > AMC: Halt and Catch Fire

BogDew: Jun 14, 2006; E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

Cool Cherry Cream posted:

Did something like their proto-Siri actually exist in the 80's?

It doesn't seem that far fetched. What appears on screen looks like a very common BASIC routine.

code:

CLS
10 PRINT "what is your name?"
20 INPUT "...(Enter Your Name)...", a$
30 PRINT
40 PRINT "hello, "; a$; ", I am your computer, nice to meet you."
60 END

And around the time games like Zork had enough sophistication that you could type in "put the sword and lamp in case" instead of having to type in each action twice.

Despite that it's a bit of a mystery meat navigation system as you likely have to be aware what's already installed on the machine and like any shell, set it up to know what programs to open.

# ? Jul 23, 2014 14:58

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# ? May 12, 2024 06:52

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

I imagine the novelty would wear off pretty quick, but maybe it really would have been mindblowing back then.

# ? Jul 23, 2014 15:11

3 Action Economist: May 22, 2002; Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

I had a game that did exactly that on my Commodore 64. Eliza? Probably exists on the internet somewhere.

E: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

Apparently it existed back in 1966.

# ? Jul 23, 2014 19:45

wormil: Sep 12, 2002; Hulk will smoke you!

I wrote program like that for my class on Basic. It's just a poo poo load of if/then and goto statements. Mine was less sophisticated but I only spent 3 weeks on it. The teacher gave mean A for the class and excused me from the rest of the course.

# ? Jul 23, 2014 20:39

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Colonial Air Force posted:

I had a game that did exactly that on my Commodore 64. Eliza? Probably exists on the internet somewhere.

E: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

Apparently it existed back in 1966.

If a user interface reminds you of a program intended to emulate talking to an insane person, it is probably not a good user interface.

# ? Jul 23, 2014 22:10

Hed: Mar 31, 2004; Fun Shoe

Giant Dr. Sbaitso

# ? Jul 23, 2014 22:51

maniacripper: May 3, 2009; STANNIS BURNS SHIREEN
HIZDAR IS THE HARPY
JON GETS STABBED TO DEATH
DANY FLIES OFF ON DROGON

So what did Cameron do? She hacked the bank to get free money or did she hack Cardiffs accounts payable money to keep the company going?

# ? Jul 23, 2014 23:46

Gonz: Dec 22, 2009; "Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"

maniacripper posted:

So what did Cameron do? She hacked the bank to get free money or did she hack Cardiffs accounts payable money to keep the company going?

The latter. Which would explain why Nathan Cardiff showed up right before the feds.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 00:08

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

maniacripper posted:

So what did Cameron do? She hacked the bank to get free money or did she hack Cardiffs accounts payable money to keep the company going?

Secretly moved money around from other Cardiff accounts to the PC dept, planning to move the money back once the Giant was on sale. rear end in a top hat Texas Owner who said "Let this fail" when his company had hemorrhaged clients to IBM and had no future just showed up to be a smug rear end in a top hat while Boz got arrested and watch them dismantle the only chance Cardiff had of making it past the next fiscal quarter.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 01:00

Pulp Can Move: Oct 4, 2012

This show needs another season so we can see Boz get out of prison ripped and covered in tats.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 03:39

Rap Game Goku: Apr 2, 2008; Word to your moms, I came to drop spirit bombs

Pulp Can Move posted:

This show needs another season so we can see Boz get out of prison ripped and covered in tats.

Why would he get ripped? He's already the strongest man in the world.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 17:45

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Spin-off show where Boz and Cameron team up to peddle the purest BIOS clones the southwest has ever seen.

Breaking Boz

# ? Jul 24, 2014 17:53

Waffles Inc.: Jan 20, 2005

this became a good show, and I couldn't be happier about it. shame there's basically no way it'll get a second season

# ? Jul 24, 2014 17:58

Toplowtech: Aug 31, 2004

unlimited shrimp posted:

Spin-off show where Boz and Cameron team up to peddle the purest BIOS clones the southwest has ever seen.

Breaking Boz

Cameron, we need to clone! I would watch that.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 18:16

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

Waffles Inc. posted:

this became a good show, and I couldn't be happier about it. shame there's basically no way it'll get a second season

I don't know, the AMC landscape is a lot different then when Rubicon aired and got cancelled. Breaking Bad is over, Mad Men has half a season left, The Walking Dead has hit middle age. poo poo, Turn got a renewal and its viewing figures were around 1.2 million. AMC might just greenlight a second season for want of anything better and the hope that it picks up. Even the second season of Mad Men averaged 1.3-1.4 million viewers, so the first season was probably less.

Plus as a summer replacement getting sub 1 million viewers isn't as serious as if it was in September/October.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 19:16

Acinonyx: Oct 21, 2005

So part of this past episode didn't make much sense to me. Joe is going all emo on his dad, who says something like 'your mom got high and dropped you off a roof' and he responds with something like 'at least she tried!'. Has he ever explained why he's so mad at his dad? All we've seen the dad do is take an interest and try and help him while Joe appears to be a self destructive super narcissist. I assume he must have been at work a lot and not been there for little Joe back in the day?

# ? Jul 24, 2014 19:22

kdrudy: Sep 19, 2009

Acinonyx posted:

So part of this past episode didn't make much sense to me. Joe is going all emo on his dad, who says something like 'your mom got high and dropped you off a roof' and he responds with something like 'at least she tried!'. Has he ever explained why he's so mad at his dad? All we've seen the dad do is take an interest and try and help him while Joe appears to be a self destructive super narcissist. I assume he must have been at work a lot and not been there for little Joe back in the day?

I believe that's the implication. His mother was a druggie but took interest in Joe while his father was busy being a business man.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 19:24

Spacebump: Dec 24, 2003; Dallas Mavericks: Generations

Acinonyx posted:

So part of this past episode didn't make much sense to me. Joe is going all emo on his dad, who says something like 'your mom got high and dropped you off a roof' and he responds with something like 'at least she tried!'. Has he ever explained why he's so mad at his dad? All we've seen the dad do is take an interest and try and help him while Joe appears to be a self destructive super narcissist. I assume he must have been at work a lot and not been there for little Joe back in the day?

Joe is mad at his dad because he lied about his mom being dead before she died. Wasn't that mentioned in the same conversation?

# ? Jul 24, 2014 19:24

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Acinonyx posted:

So part of this past episode didn't make much sense to me. Joe is going all emo on his dad, who says something like 'your mom got high and dropped you off a roof' and he responds with something like 'at least she tried!'. Has he ever explained why he's so mad at his dad? All we've seen the dad do is take an interest and try and help him while Joe appears to be a self destructive super narcissist. I assume he must have been at work a lot and not been there for little Joe back in the day?

Imagine you're a child who can't really process what's going on or realize what your abusive junkie mom is actually like. You're probably all mixed up about her but still love her despite her behaviour or how she's hurt you. One day she disappears. Your dad tells you she abandoned the family (read: You) and then died. This probably traumatizes you and further screws up your head -- maybe dad was right, maybe she was no good, maybe she never loved me, etc.

Later, you find out that she didn't abandon you, but was forced to leave by your dad, and that she didn't die right away, but lived another life for 20 years. 20 years you could have known her and loved her, and been loved; 20 years to mend the broken fences, etc etc

I'd be pretty furious at my dad too, even if he did the 'right thing'. From Joe's perspective, how can be believe anything his dad's said about his mom?

Plus I'm sure they're saving a lot of heinous stuff his dad did for season 2.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 19:29

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

kdrudy posted:

I believe that's the implication. His mother was a druggie but took interest in Joe while his father was busy being a business man.

You don't get a house like that and jet-set to Hong Kong in the 80s without having ignored your families for decades to reach that point.

# ? Jul 24, 2014 19:38

Meatwave: Feb 21, 2014; Truest Detective - Work Crew Division.

Waffles Inc. posted:

this became a good show, and I couldn't be happier about it. shame there's basically no way it'll get a second season

I wouldn't accept that as fate yet. HCF has few viewers, sure, but it's a bit of a unique case. Other AMC shows like Low Winter Sun that were cancelled had better ratings, but a lot of those ratings were due to Breaking Bad as a fantastic lead-in. HCF's first three episodes ran against loving Game of Thrones in its powerful last three episodes of the season. By comparison, Mad Men's mid-season end at the same time got just 1.9 million viewers to HCF's 1.2 premier a week later in the same slot.

That Mad Men episode included probably the most important historic event to happen during the Mad Men era. It should have done a lot better. And this is HCF, a show that's a slow burn and acquired taste for people who don't know what a BIOS is, so you can't jump right in to episode 4 and know what's going on.

My point is that the HCF ratings were going to be lovely from the very start.

Second, AMC wants to have Emmy-nominated historical dramas on the network. But Mad Men, its main show in that genre, is ending. Better Call Saul got delayed and is not historical. Turn, a historical drama, got renewed despite some pretty lovely reviews from critics and mediocre ratings. But critics seem to like HCF. Of AMC's 26 Emmy nominations, only two didn't go to Breaking Bad or Mad Men, and those were to Walking Dead's effects and sound. Hell on Wheels is doing good, but got no Emmy nominations. If AMC thinks that HCF has some Emmy material, especially in its last few episodes, then that adds value to the show.

Third, AMC is low on shows for 2015 already. They are also trying to build up the Sundance channel, so there's a chance that HCF gets moved to there.

Then there's the final kicker: The audience for HCF is wealthy. There might not be many viewers, but the viewers that do watch the show have money to burn.

That's a lot of good reasons to possibly renew HCF despite its low ratings. It might get overhauled, moved, or only given 5 episodes, but I wouldn't be that surprised to see it renewed.

Meatwave fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jul 24, 2014

# ? Jul 24, 2014 20:32

Acinonyx: Oct 21, 2005

Wait, this is getting lower ratings than Low Winter Sun? I thought LWS was as close to 0 as you could get while actually being on TV; which was amazing considering the lead in.

Thanks for the explanations. I guess I followed the details ok, but was confused on how we were support to feel bad about him not getting to be dropped off more roofs or whatever. I'm pretty sure my experience of having a mom who worked all the time but loved us vs. a drugged up POS dad colored my take in favor of his dad.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 01:29

BogDew: Jun 14, 2006; E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

unlimited shrimp posted:

I imagine the novelty would wear off pretty quick, but maybe it really would have been mindblowing back then.

It's roughly the 80's equivalent of the Windows 8 start screen. It's new n fancy, but it's trying too hard to reinvent the wheel despite having it's heart in the right place.

Basically back then you had to have enough technical know how to use a computer. This was the era where you had type-in-programs you found in magazines and then modified to better them or to port them over to other systems, because it was too expensive to buy disks. Or later you could order disks with the programs via mail.
Cameron's shell is attempting to be user friendly for the 80% who don't use a PC, but it would be infuriating for the 20% who just want to access the command line. It's perfect for the office type who just wanted to "open wordstar" or "start lotus".

By this time in the show (Nov 1983) Computers with GUI's are right on the horizon. The Xerox Star had come and gone as a curious and expensive failure, the Apple Lisa had already introduced the concept of a GUI into the workplace and the Macintosh is very soon to be released.

I do have this image of Season 1 ending with "what is that?" "Oh it's called a cursor, see you move this mouse and you can click on icons".

Season 2 could be amusing if they cover the OS wars and fight against Apple who sues them for copying menu bars. Plus The Giant suffering from the Osborne effect as they try and get one running with an OS at the risk of cannibalizing their sales.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 04:25

Finndo: Dec 27, 2005; Title Text goes here.

The ads are saying "only two episodes left this season" as opposed to, "only two episodes left." Grammatically that implies another season is coming, but maybe it is just wishful thinking on someone's part.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 22:08

ApathyGifted: Aug 30, 2004; Tomorrow?

You know, I was bothered by Bosworth's rather sudden change of heart towards the Giant, but then a notion hit me.

I think playing Adventure won him over. I don't recall him warming up until just after that happened, which at first felt like a throwaway joke. But I'm thinking that up until then, he thought of computers as just a business asset, and personal PC's were just a novelty that would die off because only nerds could really run them for entertainment purposes. Getting hooked on Adventure probably opened his eyes on how awesome they could be as personal devices, and how much money they could make off of it if they got in on the ground floor of making PC's part of home entertainment.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 23:41

Finndo: Dec 27, 2005; Title Text goes here.

Good catch on "Adventure" being the thing that converted Bosworth. I think it's a fair point, but also think they needed to show the conversion a bit more before dropping the bomb that he is willing to go to jail for the device.

Mad Men is big on making plot leaps that are initially jarring, but that make sense once you figure them out. They usually do this with a pretty deft hand, which I think translates to not making you wait too long before figuring out what happened. It's a fine line between a stylistic device that adds to your enjoyment of the show and appreciation of its mode of storytelling, and one that makes you baffled and annoyed.

# ? Jul 25, 2014 23:48

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

ApathyGifted posted:

You know, I was bothered by Bosworth's rather sudden change of heart towards the Giant, but then a notion hit me.

I think playing Adventure won him over. I don't recall him warming up until just after that happened, which at first felt like a throwaway joke. But I'm thinking that up until then, he thought of computers as just a business asset, and personal PC's were just a novelty that would die off because only nerds could really run them for entertainment purposes. Getting hooked on Adventure probably opened his eyes on how awesome they could be as personal devices, and how much money they could make off of it if they got in on the ground floor of making PC's part of home entertainment.

That, along with a combination of him self-teaching himself(an old stuck in his ways mentality businessman) how computers and programming works, along with Cameron helping him seems like he became genuinely fascinated with this emerging field and sees the potential to take Cardiff to the next level. He went from best buds with Mr. Cardiff to "gently caress this guy we're making this PC" in a couple of months.

I hope we get more of him in the show, hopefully once they debut the Giant, and suddenly 10,000s of orders/requests flood into Cardiff Boz is now holding all the cards and Old Man Cardiff can either pretend he was for it all along or piss off the rest of the company owners/board members by being a stodgy rear end in a top hat.

# ? Jul 27, 2014 21:55

Spacebump: Dec 24, 2003; Dallas Mavericks: Generations

I really enjoyed tonight's episode. Lots of highs and lows.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 04:02

hohum: Mar 17, 2010; umoms.

The characters are flawed but the series isn't without charm.

I really wanted them to succeed. I don't like the direction this show is headed. I'm probably not going to watch the season finale.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 04:02

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

Spacebump posted:

I really enjoyed tonight's episode. Lots of highs and lows.

Yeah, but the lows were ~~really~~ annoying.

- Cameron on a rant about the computer's "soul"
- Shocking reveal of TI's exact copy of the Giant
- The Gordon/Donna drama being way too long
- The Macintosh reveal. We get it, Apple was a revolution, they still struggled to achieve prominence and didn't shoot into the stratosphere until the 2000s.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 05:08

Fooz: Sep 26, 2010

Cameron is terrible.

Who in the tech world has ever looked at the fastest, cheapest, functional product and said "what's so special about that?"

It's the fastest and cheapest and it works! It's the best by all accounts! Kind of annoying that they had to make the reveal and celebration all dour because they hurt the feelings of a child who wanted to kill the project out of pride.

Fooz fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jul 28, 2014

# ? Jul 28, 2014 05:20

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

Fooz posted:

Cameron is terrible.

Whatever character growth she actual experiences, the writers immediately turn to the "angry tech dreamer" at the drop of a hat. Seriously, you'd think "Hey Cameron, if we don't lose this OS the Giant is dead and we are all unemployed with a poo poo resume. Also you have no degree and your only option is to go back being a drifter and trying to cheat arcades" would cause her to take a step back and evaluated her life.

Nope, back to storming off like a child the instant she doesn't get her way.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 05:25

ballistics statistics: Nov 27, 2003; God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title

I don't understand how TI got the design for the Giant. Was there an actual explanation or just that scene in tonight's episode where they don't know what the gently caress and her boss just mysteriously figured it out?

EDIT: also the Mac reveal was fantastic. I'm looking forward to the next episode where Joe freaks the gently caress out about it, knowing that Mac's were only a small percent of the market but he imagines they'll take over the whole industry (in 83).

# ? Jul 28, 2014 05:57

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

ThaGrandCow posted:

I don't understand how TI got the design for the Giant. Was there an actual explanation or just that scene in tonight's episode where they don't know what the gently caress and her boss just mysteriously figured it out?

EDIT: also the Mac reveal was fantastic. I'm looking forward to the next episode where Joe freaks the gently caress out about it, knowing that Mac's were only a small percent of the market but he imagines they'll take over the whole industry (in 83).

Apparently fired employee Brian walked off with the BIOS, motherboard design, screen model (proprietary from the Japanese which required a special contract to even get), case design, etc. and walked into TI with it and they just built the whole thing.

I assume the idea was that Cardiff would be too small or cash strapped to sue, but the BIOS alone should've been a major legal problem for them to surmount, especially once IBM gets wind and can sue them into oblivion easily because no one there can show to have independently created it (wasn't that the entire plot for the first 4 episodes?)

# ? Jul 28, 2014 06:05

Meatwave: Feb 21, 2014; Truest Detective - Work Crew Division.

Holy poo poo that Mac.

Also I liked the lovely printer guys. That was more representative of early computer expos than anything else.

Speaking of which, here's some VHS video of the real 1983 Comdex:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNS8TE4XhU

# ? Jul 28, 2014 06:36

wormil: Sep 12, 2002; Hulk will smoke you!

This show can't let you cheer for anyone.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 06:42

TheRationalRedditor: Jul 17, 2000; WHO ABUSED HIM. WHO ABUSED THE BOY.

The TI affair bait and the ex-employee neighbor was a nice crisis twist in spirit, but the notion that they'd somehow be able to replicate all of the Cardiff project's specs, design and goals with an even smaller independent team in less time is shoehorned nonsense. That guy got fired in like the 3rd episode. Even if he had stolen the BIOS diagrams, the last time he saw the project was when it was a piece of PCB - forget the LCD screen and the suitcase design.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 07:36

Factor Mystic: Mar 20, 2006; Baby's First Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

TheRationalRedditor posted:

The TI affair bait and the ex-employee neighbor was a nice crisis twist in spirit, but the notion that they'd somehow be able to replicate all of the Cardiff project's specs, design and goals with an even smaller independent team in less time is shoehorned nonsense. That guy got fired in like the 3rd episode. Even if he had stolen the BIOS diagrams, the last time he saw the project was when it was a piece of PCB - forget the LCD screen and the suitcase design.

They didn't actually have a working demo, did they? It looked like they just had an announcement. I thought with the Giant buyout offer, it was going to be that they didn't have anything and were hoping to just rebrand the Giant to Slingshot and sell it as theirs.

Also, Cameron is sort of right that a "more personal" computer is the future, but if they had demo'd her OS, they would've been completely rolled by Apple. Gordon/Joe was right to rip it out and compete with their actual competitors, the other DOS based IBM clones. That's where they want to be for the time being, because that's what will move units.

Also the best line was from the TI guy, retorting to Joe's line about never creating anything, that they're in the "compatible" business. Bingo.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 15:27

BogDew: Jun 14, 2006; E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

Welp, called the inevitable mac reference, complete with mouse, and Joe likely going mental in order to keep up with the Jobses.

The show has picked up, mainly due to the fact the characters end up with a goal to achieve. I'm also surprised there's not many "oh hay, it's the 80s!" clunks like Mad Men often snuck in.

I had to laugh at the Xerox guy from the future, namedropping "hypertext" and "object orientated programming" as buzzwords from the dark halls of PARC to get into Cameron's pants. Basically all he was going on about was a fancy way to describe Smalltalk, something that had been around since the 70's. He might have well mentioned Project Xanadu.

But yeah it was a bit of a stretch to have a surprise clone on hand, despite being a nice ironic twist of who is the most honest thief.
They kind of explain it away by suggesting cheap knockoff components in an empty box, but yeah it's a bit of a dramatic leap. Unless the ex-employee had more spies in his midst, which would have made a nice "gently caress you" to Joe's ego as he realizes the actual cost of running over people.

And then came the Macintosh by candlelight, of which we veer into the twilight zone as the little box glows with a holy light and everyone sees the second coming. It completely achieves Cameron's dream of a computer with personality simply with a smiley face and a workable GUI.

The voice (MacinTalk) was a port of Software Automatic Mouth developed on an Apple II - so not completely mindblowing, just a novelty added late to show off the computer for the shareholders.

Given how much Joe gushed about Jobs he would have known something about the Macintosh, as it was announced during October 1983 in the press. But I suspect it was dismissed as a "cheaper Lisa that was sinking Apple" and not really noticed till the 18 page colour brochure started coming out in December.

Historically the "Hello this is Macintosh" demo was pretty much cobbled together days before the showing.
The shareholders saw the thing in January of 1984, the public a week later at a gathering at the Boston Computer Society.

The idea of a $500 PC for the masses eventually crept up to $2495.
But compare that to a Lisa sold earlier that spring at $10,000. At the time of release people didn't see it as being a serious IBM competitor, it was noted for being a curious user-friendly appliance. Given how saturated the market was in developing IBM compatibles it took a while before people finally "got it".

It does sum up the nightmare of trying to develop something revolutionary (The TI guy making the pitch from behind looked like a Jobs knock off) in a market that's so saturated you have to end up cannibalizing your soul to succeed.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 15:35

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# ? May 12, 2024 06:52

Kung Fu Jesus: Jun 20, 2002; lol jews gonna get fucked.

I really can't decide if I like this show or not. Its interesting enough that I will watch a second season but its just so inconsistent. The one thing I do know is that I enjoy it much better when the team is working together against everyone else rather than fighting amongst themselves or with themselves.

# ? Jul 28, 2014 20:24

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > AMC: Halt and Catch Fire

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