Submission + - Halt and Catch Fire's COMDEX '83: Cheesy, But No More Than Real Thing 1
theodp writes: AMC's Halt and Catch Fire, the fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution, has its season finale Sunday night. In last week's episode, the Cardiff Electric gang took their "featherweight" 15-lb. 'Giant' luggable PC clone to COMDEX 1983 for its debut. It'd be easy to write off the episode's cheesy Vegas hospitality suites, garish attire, and funky trade show floor displays, booths, and exhibits as the flights of fancy of the show's designers, were it not for Dan Bricklin's videos of Fall COMDEX 1983. You'll see 28-year-old Bill Gates talking about Xenix development, a pre-Mac mouse and paint program on an Apple IIe, a demo of pre-1.0 Microsoft Windows, and see why Lotus 1-2-3 Rocks. There's no doubt that Cardiff Electric's 'Giant' could have held its own against the Pied Piper ("leads your business exactly where you want to go," reads the brochure) or even IBM's humorless hands-on demo of 72 IBM PC Jr.'s (holy cow, a clock program!). While there was some Buck Rogers tech on display, e.g., HP's Touch 150 and speech on the T.I. Professional Computer, those were simpler times — it's hard to believe the Mac was waiting in the wings!