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Pirates of Silicon Valley 166

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-watch dept.
We've mentioned this once or twice in the past, but I figure its probably worth mentioning it again. Pirates of the Silicon Valley is running this weekend on TNT (sunday at 8pm). Its the story of Gates and Jobs, as played by Noah Wiley and Anthony Michael Hall. I dunno if it'll be any good, but I'll probably watch it. It'll be interesting to see how they take the story (which is actually quite entertaining and interesting) and adapt it for a mainstream audience. Thanks to jbut355 for reminding me.
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Pirates of Silicon Valley More

Pirates of Silicon Valley

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  • Re:ahh it will probably be fluff ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >All I can see is he donated about $400million to put Windows PCs in some libraries.

    A local library around here was recieving a computer from that program, and had Linux installed on it instead of Windows. Apparently somebody had given them a copy of Linux and they liked it so much more than Windows that they asked that the computers come with Linux on them instead of Windows.

  • FWIW, and so long as we're talking fluff, my first impression of a publicity shot of Noah Wyle was he's more of a Linus [metroactive.com] than a Jobs. Maybe next year when we get "Attack of the Screaming Penguin Hoardes"....

    This pic [about] shows the resemblance pretty well....

  • As others have pointed out, it's idiotic to assume that anyone that doesn't like Bill Gates or his actions is just jealous. (Or, for that matter, that "everyone of us" is jealous.) While it would be nice to have a few billion in the bank, it has nothing to do with my dislike for him. I'm not even jealous of millionaires that I respect.

    I do admit that I don't know the man personally (surprise, surprise), but you can surmise quite a bit from his and his company's actions and second-hand stories. It doesn't paint a pretty picture.

    So... are you jealous of the crack dealer down the street driving the brand new Mercedes? He sure is a shrewd businessman! If you criticize him, you must just be jealous!
  • Posted by Bill, the Galactic Hero:


    The Web is a tool. I use it to get journal publications. I send code back and forth over it. But that's it.

    The web is not the greatest invention mankind has every created. That's a tossup between the harmonica and dynamite.

    Ten years from now, (I hope) we'll look back on this frenzy over web pages full of kittens the way we look back on roller disco.





  • Posted by Swarth:

    Actually I learned in DOS.. 2.1 I think, on my Tandy 1000EX.
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    The thing that I liked best was the way Jobs was portrayed. They showed Steve Jobs to be the asshole that he really is.

    I'm extremely happy that someone decided to stop sucking Steve Jobs' ass for just long enough to show him to be the person that he really is.

    I also liked the way Bill Gates was not portrayed as just plain evil, but simply greedy which is a much more plausable explaination for why he acts the way he does.

    LK
  • Posted by Nina Simone:

    There will be a lot more movies and books about Jobs, Woz and Gates. Gad, we've yet to see their ghost written autobiographies - although I'm hoping Woz will construct a superior minimalist bio.

    I don't think the whole biz will fly until there are nerd sex revelations. When I see the Enquirer running a story about Melissa spanking Bill, I know we'll have hit the Variety moment.

    There could be a movie about you. Keep coding, keep schmoozing and hang out at Buck's.

  • So? He hasn't actually given the money away... it's just earmarked for charity. What's he going to do with it? Buy Windows PCs for children in poor countries? When he starts using significant amounts of his money to benefit people in ways that do not also directly benefit him, then maybe I'll believe that he's being charitable. 'Til then, I don't buy it.

  • In the publicity photos I've seen, he looks like the young Steve, especially in the bowtie get-up like the one Steve wore to the original Mac presentation. I'm wondering, however, if Wiley will be able to duplicate that 'I am the baddest motherfucker alive' expession Steve had on his face that day. If you haven't ever seen that, see if you can dig up a movie of it somewhere on the net.

    It's the perfect picture of a 27-year old who was quite convinced that he was truly the shit.

    Don Negro

  • TNT (Score:1)

    by sQuiNky ( 1079 )
    Does anyone know whether this is the same TNT which broadcasts in The Netherlands?
  • I dunno, maybe it's just me, but it seems like I was born to late or something. reading their (jobs and gates) bios and seeing all that they did, and all that they accomplished (and no matter what side of the fence you lie on, you _have_ to admit that they did accomplish a lot. how many of you would've gone into computers when you did if window$ weren't there to help you through the baby steps...) it just makes me think that I'm stepping into a field that's drying up. seems like all of the _huge_ discoveries have been made, and all the major players have already been chosen. ya know?
    oh well, that's just my rant. thnks
    -peter
  • I'm an idiot.
    Visit Moody's article here [go.com]. And hopefully the anchor is CLOSED this time...
  • Remember he is probably the most responsible for you having that PC in front of you.
    Ha You freakish lazy-eyed bastard.
    Only a suck up Microsofty would believe that crap. I guess Bill also is responsible for the internet and spell checking. Did IBM build a PC and try to get CP/M on it? Yes they did! Look at what Steve Jobs did with 128k of memory in 1984 and then talk to me about Billy.
    Bill Gate deserves to be known as the person who sold crap as face-cream. He lost any redeeming quality day two of Microsoft.

  • A Review and a Debunking (Score:3)

    by Chops-Frozen-Water ( 2085 ) on Friday June 18, 1999 @09:33AM (#1843398) Homepage
    ...were published in yesterday's Salon [salon.com]. The review [salon.com] had this quote: "if you're looking for an amusing, Hollywood-filtered dramatization of the rise of the geek industry, there are worse ways to spend your Sunday evening."
    The debunking of the story [salon.com] I found more interesting and informative. "Pirates" isn't ground-breaking by any means, and does little more than perpetuate the existing mythos of Silicon Valley (and make TNT some ad revenue). The real history (IMHO) is more interesting, but it'd shatter the popular worldview, so few subscribe to it. It's more fun to demonize people you only know through third- or fourth-hand accounts, apparently. :)
    --
  • Yeah ... I still have my DOS 3.21 manuals ...
    Those were the days ... when 640K really meant
    something!
  • It says they have pioneered the technology landscape. I would have to disagree as many were involved in shaping and developing the technology market. They just were the best hijackers and exploiters. They put the "R" in Ruthless.
  • n the publicity photos I've seen, he looks like the young Steve, especially in the bowtie get-up like the one Steve wore to the original Mac presentation. I'm wondering, however, if Wiley will be able to duplicate that 'I am the baddest motherfucker alive' expession Steve had on his face that day. If you haven't ever seen that, see if you can dig up a movie of it somewhere on the net.

    I was one of those lucky enough to catch it when they played it to make the Emmy deadline. He pretty much had that. That and he came off as a collossal asshole. The guy who did Woz could've been thicker (Woz is fat, ok?) but otherwise was good. The guy who did Ballmer was dead-on.

  • Good Lord! Do all you people randomly watch TNT at 2 am? And I thought I stay up too late watching pointless TV...

  • But remember in the ending what Gates (in the movie) said to Jobs? "You still don't get it do you??" It is not about whether the product is superior or not, it's about how one can manipulate the markets to use their product.... which is something that Gates does so well and that Jobs seemed to have lost his way before but are not getting better at it ....
  • ... judging from their website.

    In reality, Gates is extremely annoying, unctious, whiney and has a grating, irritating voice. He acts like a spoiled brat. The guy is a total ninny. They will definitely gloss this over completely; I'm sure he will be portrayed as a tough talking no-nonsense type of person.

    Yet, it might be interesting to see him transform from a young whiney rich ninny-spoiled brat into a old, market-drone-speak ultra-rich billionaire ninny-spoiled brat.

    He will not be portrayed this way. Once the motherfucker is safely (for us, I hope, with shub-niggurath slowly eating his soul for all eternity) in his grave, maybe someone will portray him realistically, adding in the linux story as well - hopefully the linux saga will have a happy ending :-)
  • nature just demands it of you. See the related Onion story [theonion.com] about the death epidemic.

    I never said he should be killed, I said ".. when this #$%#$ dies"

  • With all of the talk of this show, I want to see the Revenge of the Nerds mini-series on PBS again. It was very well done, interesting, and makes me want to buy it. Too bad it's not on DVD.


    *All Hail DIVX is Dead!*
  • I meant Triumph of the Nerds
  • It says at the bottom that the guy wrote a book about MS, so his objectivity can't necessarily be assumed, but also keep in mind that this is on a site owned by ABC, a company that wants you to watch their TV shows(or at least the Disney channel).

  • There was a link somewhere on Slashdot a few months ago to a history of video games. It's long but interesting. It mentioned that apparently more than several computers featured hardware that "walked" out the back doors of video game companys.

  • Thanks to the beauty of the PBS Bass'O'Matic you too can produce a three part series that hypes your own book and ego. You don't believe us? Well let us prove it with this side-by-side challenge:

    The car on the right is fueled by galvaston XT267-23 (after 5pm DT283-73 ext.164) and the car on the left is powered by Cringely's ego. And...there off. Galvaston XT267-23 (after 5pm DT283-73 ext.164) begins to pull ahead, it looks like and early lead for galvaston XT267-23 (after 5pm DT283-73 ext.164). Wait, Cringely's ego is building up RPMs, yes, Cringely's ego is taking the lead. And at the finish is...a big hole. Cringely's ego falls into the hole and is never seen again. This is why we must all be on constant guard against the Red Menance.

    Yes, the Red Menance, working title for The Phantom Menance, a rather silly story about a boy and his dog, his dog being a robot, a robot he built himself from scraps of other dogs, those dogs also being robots that were scrapped. The boy falls down a well, that well being a wormhole through which he travels to other planets, other planets that all look like parts of the english countryside. There he meets a mad hatter and march hare, played by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor. They enjoy a nice spot of tea and exchange names, signs, and blaster fire with a few of the queen's (played by a man I know was in "Brazil") guards, played by some ones and zereos organized in video buffers......"NO NO NO, now stop this! This is much to silly. Return to disparaging Cringley or I'll have to stop this for good."


    Cringely can bite my caunnish. canaush? tomAto? tOmato?
  • the link you give seems to be somewhat flawed, try this one http://tnt.turne r.com/movies/tntoriginals/pirates/img/enter-bg.jpg [turner.com]

    matguy
    Net. Admin.
  • only for question #19 if for noothing else, if you don't get it you probably never will.

    matguy
    Net. Admin.
  • /* I've heard it both ways. Anyone know for sure how one pronouces "Jobs"? */

    My uncle used to work for NeXT computer, and as a result I'd get a lot of discounted NeXT cubes and stations and parts.

    One cube that I bought had a .snd clip of Jobs talking (overlaid on Handel's "Messiah" -- slightly funny).

    He pronounced it "Jobs" -- that is to say as most North Americans would pronounce the word as seeing it.

    If I'm not mistaken the NeXTmail voice attachment program, LipService, had a little intro ditty by Jobs. Again, pronounced "Jobs" as in the sentence "I got fired from three jobs" :)

  • Again, I'm not going to speak for anyone but myself and my personal experience ...
    [end disclaimer]

    but Jobs himself pronounced it Jobs. NeXT employees pronounced it Jobs. (My uncle was pretty high up if I'm not mistaken, and his employees pronounced it Jobs as well.) I don't think that you would be apt to mispronounce the boss' name :)
  • Hahahaha, Rick Moranis as BIll Gates!

    "Honey, I stole some technology, and built a machine that shrunk the kids and dominated the industry!"

    ;)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • A lot of the details of who did what and when would be different, but the overall pattern would be the same.
    The AC makes a good point.

    Like the philosopher said, "It steam engines when it comes steam engine time."

    --Z.

  • to compare the two - one produces a few very high quality, highly regarded, well reviewed, albeit expensive products like the Next box or WebObjects for a select, well heeled clientel, while the other produces a flood of cheap, buggy doggerel intended to prey upon the gullibilities of any moron who want's to appear to be computer savvy

    :)

    Chuck

  • He is right, however. You probably don't have a Mac or a Sun or an Ultra on your desk (unless you're one of the minority), you have an IBM pc clone, whose widespread use can be attributed to an open architecture (IBM's doing) and a standard, consistent OS (MSDOS). One major reason you can AFFORD to buy this pc is because these two things opened up a huge market that allowed economies of scale, bringing prices down (not the only reason, I admit it). Note that this combination pretty much blew the competition out of the water : where today are the SOLs, the Altairs, the IMSAIs, the Osbournes, the TRS80's, the Ataris, the Amigas?

    So one reason why Linux was developed initially on an x86 was because Gates had a hand in making cheap x86 pcs to flourish, making them accessible to poor students (Linus has said he couldn't afford the commercial Unices, so I assume he wasn't fabulously wealthy). Ironically, it is partially thanks to Gates that Linux was initially x86 based.

    I have no love for Gates or MS, but lets not rewrite history: Gates has had a fundamental role to play in the economics of the computer industry (even if, technologically, MS cannot be credited with any innovations, or even quality software). However, I admit that if it hadn't been Gates with MSDOS, it could well have been Kildall with CP/M, or someone else.
  • And how many CP/M machines have you owned?

    Steve Jobs didn't do squat at Apple except to harass a group of technical geniuses into hacking out a half-assed copy of the Xerox Alto. He was (and still is) a marketing guy. If you want to fawn over him, go ahead. It just proves how powerful his cult of personality had become, before it came crashing down to the real world.

    If you want to fawn over someone who matters, try Larry Wall (I think he'd appreciate the humor in that) or Torvalds(almost a Cult leader already).

  • I've heard it both ways. Anyone know for sure how one pronouces "Jobs"?

  • They got the title wrong - it should have been called "Prats of Silicon Valley" ;)

  • I've seen it. It was on a while ago on TNT, I guess they just didn't tell anyone. It's awfull. Especially the corny ending with Bill Gates on a giant screen saying to Steve Jobs "looks like we will working together..." and how many years it skips at the end. A little before it ends you see Steve and Bill arguing about Xerox, where they both just whine... blah blah blah..... It's target audience is luddites, I just MiSTified the whole thing while it was going on.
    --
    Four years in jail
    No Trial, No Bail
    *** FREE KEVIN *** [kevinmitnick.com]
  • Early computing... Well, almost, but try http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/index .htm [emuunlim.com]

    --

  • I gotta admire the man. He's found someplace he appears happy!

    WOZ.ORG [woz.org]

    There's some neat stuff in there. The interviews are interesting.

    --

  • I don't know, but the story of these two guys has hardly begun. Why make a movie about it?

    In 20 or 30 years, it will really be clear if this story is worth being told, but now?

    A documentary would - in my opinion - be far more appropriate for this subject.

    (I also found this comment by the actor playing Gates quite amusing: "I really fought for this part because I knew it would be the role of a lifetime". Come on. Bill Gates the role of a lifetime?)
  • Don't know. Judging from their web site, it seems to me that they have cast Bill G. as the villain. No reason to complain, I guess.
  • I think most of the people who feel that way aren't neccessarily jealous, but they are mad at the way he abuses his power and is so greedy.

    I personally am mad because he has sooooo much damn money and what does he do with it? He just keeps buying up other companies and getting more power. Think of all the good that could be done with just half of his money.

    If I had that kind of money I would be donating it and making the world a better place with it. What has he done? All I can see is he donated about $400million to put Windows PCs in some libraries. Who does that help? That is chump change to him, plus it is such a stupid cause when there are much more important problems in this country and the world than libraries with old computers.

    He claims he will give his fortune away, but I don't see that happening.

  • >I'm sure he will be portrayed as a tough talking
    > no-nonsense type of person.

    Uh, have you even seen any commercials for it? I've seen ones that have shown Jobs going off on employees as well as Gates whining/screaming.. etc. Definately not glossing it over the whole time.

  • Yes, they did air it early once on a late night
    in order to beat the deadline for Emmy contention.
    The show had to air before a specific date -- I'm
    guessing 01 June -- to be up for this year's
    Emmys. Newer shows have better chances of winning
    an Emmy than older shows. They're fresher in the
    voters' memories. Plus, they wouldn't get stuck
    in the "No, that show was nominated last year" trap. =)

    -Augie
  • Actually, a good book to read on the subject is "Insanely Great" by Steven Levy. Levy, a longtime columnist for MacWorld may be a little too kind to the folks at One Infinite Loop, but it really details the process of the creation and acceptance of the GUI as the defacto standard for personal computers. I haven't had the chance to read "The History of Apple", but I am looking forward to the read sometime in the near future.

    Judging from the "Pirates" web site, I expect them to get a number of facts wrong. On thier "Silicon Quiz" they incorrectly attribute the Apple Lisa as being named after Job's daughter. While her name is Lisa, the machine was actually named after another Apple engineer (whose name is unknown to me.)
  • They had a preview screening at the Seattle film festival a few weeks back. Here's my reaction.

    Spoiler: Microsoft wins. Focus is on the early days, around the Altair. It then goes through to the Apple/Microsoft investment with the devil a few years back, with screen time decreasing exponentially with historical time. So the end of the story is Big Brother Bill smirking down on Steve from the big screen.

    It's hard to know what a non-technical person would like and dislike. I already knew of almost every historical event portrayed, so there weren't many surprises (BillG used to get in trouble speeding? Woah!). But more interesting to me than the anecdotes, or even the performances (pretty good), was the eerie sense of watching this unfold on a big screen.

    Your TV screen will be smaller, but it will still be eerie. If you were there in the early days, even as an AppleII owner rather than a bigwig, you know how small and unknown the PC world was. Seeing it onscreen is like seeing a movie about, say, yourself in elementary school. You felt at the time that someday Posterity would recognize the importance of your 4th-grade world, but you eventually gave up that belief. Now all of a sudden it's there and it's real. It's so freaky a sensation that you have to admit you could still be in 4th grade and having a long and convincing dream. An Ur-nerd won't learn much new from this flick, but it's definitely worth checking out for that sensation.

    On the other hand, it's a bit disappointing that they made this movie, if it means that the subject is "done" and no one's likely to do another one soon. Because it would be nice to see a movie about the early days that's written better. There are several klunky transitions, and Jobs and Gates are forced to spew out semi-meaningless chunks of their philosophies in places that don't flow nicely. One fun surprise was the Steve Ballmer character, which captures his humor. It doesn't show off his intelligence, though (e.g., he beat Bill in a math competition at Harvard). Perhaps this is a reflection of the scope of the project; how can you really show what any one person is like when you try to show the lives of half a dozen people in events spanning ten years?

    (p.s. - the director and A.M. Hall were there and answered some questions. A good time had by all. Steve and Bill have not asked to see it, we were told. A thick notebook of research exists to backup every scene, for legal reasons. Still, some scenes have been slightly massaged for dramatic purposes.)
  • Heh, thank you for confirming this. Watched it very early one morning a few weeks ago. I had heard about it, probably remembered some ad, so I thought I was watching a replay from earlier that evening. When the media blitz started a few days later, I was really confused.

    My own take on it was that it might be interesting to someone who hasn't read (or at least skimmed the first chapter at the bookstore) one of the many books detailing Silicon Valley lore.

    To anyone else, you should be able to quote the script as it's chapter and verse of just about anything you've heard regarding Gates and Jobs.

  • How I saw it was that Gates and Jobs were portrayed along the lines of what someone -- the director? -- perceived as the "personality" of the computers/platforms they made their riches on.

    Jobs has personality. We've been told that Macs have "personality."

    Gates was cold and awkward. Certain camps would say the same thing about PCs.


    But fluff? Yeah. Text into pictures, nothing inspiring or groundbreaking.
  • Does anyone know if it will air on any of the Canadian cable networks in the near future?

    (We don't get TNT, only TBS)

    Maybe TNT will make it into the next set of channels on the DSS/cable lineups. I hate having to wait for TNT shows (like Babylon 5's final season and movies... the extra wait and change of scheduling times caused me to miss the last 3 months completely)
  • All the reviews I've seen so far said it had big gaping holes, but that's it's still definitely worth seeing.
  • Just a dumb piece of trivia, but: this is actually the second time Pirates of Silicon Valley is playing! It already aired a couple weeks ago, and several people have confirmed seeing it on a lot of the Mac news sites. There was a lot of speculation about why it happened, because a National Geographic special was supposed to air during the time slot.
  • Steve Wozniak set up a plan to give stock options to early employees out of his own account, under a program that they called the WozPlan. I forgot the details and the numbers (it's in the Mac Bathroom Reader) but he said he did it because he felt the early employees weren't getting their fair share of stock options. Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula told Woz he was wasting his fortune, but several people wrote letters to Woz thanking him for helping them to put their kids through college or start businesses because of the WozPlan.
  • I was flippin channels and came across it on TNT at 3:am EST...

    I could never understand the commercials for it after that...

    "See it on it's network debut, June 20th, 8pm..."

    Odd.
  • I guess I'm one of the rarer ones, then...

    I was born in Sept. 1982 (I'm 16 now, in case you can't do basic math :). My family got our first computer (a ZX-81 - it's still in the basement somewhere, and it will run, but half the keys don't work) the same week I was born.

    I remember playing games on our C-64 when I was 3 or 4 or 5 - and I used and mastered Win3.1 when I was about 10 or so. Thought M$ was the best thing around (I don't any more - that changed last year - about the same time I got Linux).

    It feels kinda awkward right now for me - I've got average/pretty good programming skills (C/C++), I've started writing a few games and stuff, but I want to get involved in a open source project - one that's not too difficult, but not ridiculously easy either...

  • Re:TNT (Score:1)

    by shave ( 16748 )
    Nope.. TNT in the states is a different ball game.. they play mostly 80's movies now. they moved all of the classic movies over to another channel.. TNT Europe does play some of the TNT original movies from time to time though so maybe we will get lucky..........
  • The movie wasnt as fact filled as the Cringely PBS special/book but it was entertaining. Steve Jobs is still my hero. It was fun seeing a drunken Bill Gates ride around on a bulldozer or whatever that was he rode around on, especially when its played by someone who was in "The Breakfast Club"
  • No, I wouldn't want his life. I'm kind of impotently mad that he's hardly doing anything. If I was in his place I'd have taken bigger risks, diversified alot more, and just plain done a bunch of additional things. He's not doing enough. $100 billion is chicken feed. I'm mad that people think this is all so great, when his entire gross worth would barely buy a couple of space stations.

  • That is not what this movie is about. This movie is about the early days. There is an excelent book called hacker that goes from the early 60's to the late 70's with the hacker revolution. This story is what is told somewhat. (based upon another book not haker) So they did not need any of the windows stuff aat all to make it interesting, but hey I just watch them I don't make them.
  • Right now, if you are aged 14-19, plus or minus a couple years, you are the middle generation in between what many people are calling a revolution. Most of you grew up, or at least were born and lived a couple years, without the electronics toys and so forth. Those younger than you are being born into and living entirely in this era that was invented and really began roaring along (I didn't say it still isn't) before you were born.

    You're not behind, but you didn't get in first, either. Of course, that should be all the more reason to try even harder to make your contribution.
  • I saw "Pirates of Silicon Valley" at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) last month. Don't worry. Bill Gates is depicted exactly how you want him. The film is actually pretty harsh. The only person lefted unscathed is Woz.

  • I have been waiting for this movie for many months and had it booked on my palm pilot. All geek comments aside, I grew up with a huge crush on Anthony Michael Hall and loved his geek/nerd look. He's gained wait, and changed a bit, but I still can't wait to see it, I think it's going to be a fun movie. I really hope that the songs I have heard on the trailer will be available on a soundtrack as it contains some great music from 60-80's
  • Your both wrong about why it aired earlier.
    It aired on TNT, un-announced at 1am, so that
    it would make the cut off date to be considered
    for the upcoming Emmies.
  • Rick Moranis? No way. Did you see the picture of anthony micheal hall on the website? Anyway I like them both.

    kmj

  • > Whether or not you like Gates, he does not deserve death.


    Why not? Care to justify W.H.Gates III's continued existance?


    Lord Bhaal - Proud spokesdaemon for the Second Church of Genocide

  • You don't know a thing about how other people feel about Gates. The psychologists have a word for what you're trying to do: projection. YOU might be jealous of Gates, but I think he's rather pathetic. I don't care how many dollars he has, he still comes across as the mildly-insecure "PLEASE affirm that I'm the neatest guy in the universe" brat. He's the figurehead of the biggest public nuisance in the latter half of this century, and he's on the cusp of becoming an also-ran in the annals of computer history.

    He can, and is, and ever will be, a ninny. Poor guy. I wouldn't trade places with him for, well, all his money.

    Would I save his life? Sure. He doesn't deserve to die...just be forgotten. Wonder which he'll like less...
  • I was wondering if anyone read the book The History of Apple: Blunders, mistakes, and (something else)? I am 16 and when I read it I thought "wow, those guys were idiots" but I don't know if I can lend a lot of credit to it sinice I sorta wasn't paying to computers when I was 4 LOL, maybe I should have been. Thanks to anyone who tells me how to take this book. On a side note, I think that the movie will be bias towards MSFT.

  • Well I'm glad Woz comes out good. There's just something about a guy that says, "I'm tired of this. I'm going to be come a 5th grade teacher." that you just got to like.
  • Yeah, it's called "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires". It's a pretty cool three-part documentary by Robert X. Cringely, based on his book "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date". Check it out at the PBS Web site [pbs.org].
  • It was called "the microsoft file" and it covered this shit pretty well.... i also found out that Stevie Jobs helped BillyG get out of a lawsuit with Apple while Gilly was still CEO
  • There is something in a person that shrinks away from challenges that you just have to _not_ like


    Spoken like a true win-at-all-costs and fuck contentment idiot. Judging others on standards that you don't posess, and demeaning them for following their heart and family, these are the qualities of the problem. Don't be part of the problem.

    (sorry but this AC post pissed me off.)


  • TNT showed this at 2AM back in May, without listing it. I accidentally stumbled across it about 30-45 minutes into the show. (Since DishTV shows the East Coast TNT feed, I saw it at 11.)

    It wasn't listed on the DishTV program guide or TV Guide, and I don't know if this was the final edit of the show or not.

    It is definitely worth seeing. They seemed to catch the feel of the era, though some details may be wrong. I'm especially interested in catching the first 30 minutes I missed, and seeing it when I am more fully conscious. I think the whole S100 Bus CP/M 4K Basic Homebrew Computer Club part of the history must have been in the first part which I missed.

    The picture of one of those early Computer Fairs looked spot-on. (That was a bit of nostalgia -- I really miss the Computer Faires, back when they were hobbyist oriented.)

    I have no idea how accurate they were in their depiction of Jobs, which struck me as a thorougly unpleasant people-user. In one scene, Wozniak confronts Jobs about one of Apple's earliest employees not being awarded any stock options. Jobs just brushes him off, and Woz says "Well, I'm giving him some of mine."

  • What the fack are YOU talking about?
  • Now apply the same theory about pretending to be an intellectual to Columbine. No angry little jerk will ever spend a year planning before he blows someone away.

    Pure rationalism, pure emotionalism, and pure sensualism...--- The Unholy Trinity.

    Supergenious?

    And so Hitler^H^H^H^H^H^HGates (hades?) begets us monitors you shake your head at when the dialog box is abolished and the computer asks you loudly,"G-e-n-e-r-a-l P-r-o-t-e-c-t-i-o-n f-a-u-l-t 0-x-0-1-3-7 a-t 0-0-0-0-s-e-m-i-c-o-l-o-n-0-0-f-9 i-n v-o-i-c-e-d-o-t-v-x-d c-o-m-m-a O-K q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n m-a-r-k"

  • How many people will be seventy on the same day in 2069? How many will have a couple more to live?

    Yikes!
  • It's the ultimate existentialist solution. As much as I have respect for spiritual seekers, (not churchgoing posers) if those were my only choices, fuck nirvana, I'd rather go through the whole cycle again than be Gates.
  • touch what a couple of hackers can build and that's hackers not crackers.

  • Minix vs Linux... and the winner is...

    Seriously they're both cool.

    Unless we have Gates kidnap Jobs and have it out with Linus.
  • Ha! When everyone with a clue has the ability tocreate a blockbuster (albeit more depth) on a spare change budget I'll give the Net credit. Other than that it's people like wall, Torvalds, and the rest of the crew who should get the credit. The media says web = sports, stocks, and porn because that's all they ever do all day.
  • No one can argue that his OS's and Apps are less than perfect, but he made his empire by being a shrewd business man, not a good programmer/visionary.

    That's exactly what's wrong with him - he benefited personally from hindering others (forcing them to use his crappy software). If you think that morality is all about helping other people, even at your own personal expense, then he's done exactly the opposite.

    If you were given the opportunity to have his life, would you take it?

    A normal person gets countless opportunities to become more successful by inconviniencing others. Since most of us don't steal and loot our way to success, something clearly prevents it. That something is what Bill (along with the great majority of other corporate leaders) lacks - he's not bound by moral obligations.

    I guess what I'm driving at is that success is not an absolute term. If it was, a thief or a murderer could be called successful just because they got away with it. Ususally, you have to do something FOR your fellow man to get that man's (woman's) respect.

    Linus comes to mind here - he's not a millioner, but he's loved by millions of people. Which do you think feels better (I have no idea, but I'm prepared to guess), and based on that, who is then more successful?

  • This response shows that you have very little idea of what it is to create money.

    I always thought that creating money meant actually working for a living. How does owning lots of stock create money?

    May be you know something that I don't?

  • So... are you jealous of the crack dealer down the street driving the brand new Mercedes? He sure is a shrewd businessman! If you criticize him, you must just be jealous!

    That's a great analogy! Although coming from a different social background, Gates is not unlike a street gangster who thinks he will get respect by dominating others. They even called that movie Pirats of Silicon Valley. I guess a private school and a few years at Harvard prevent you from actually TAKING money from people, but the motivation remains the same.

  • Bill Gates has become a monopolist not because he was ambitious or driven, but because of that contract he signed with IBM many years ago. In effect, they gave their monopoly away without him or them knowing it at the time

    Even if he was an ambitious guy (which he obviously isn't), why would that necessarily be good? You could say Hitler was ambitious - look how much he achieved. By the way, that last thing was supposed to be a joke, but it does illustrate my point. You can't admire someone just for being successful. That is a typically American trait that frightens people all over the world.
  • (Thanks God someone else saw it last month, no one would believe me ;-)

    It really should have been called 'Pirate...'; the entire movie is essentially about Jobs' personal life. Or about Jobs' evil twin. I don't think he ever came across as likeable throughout the movie. Even on the rare occasions when he wasn't acting like an ass, it was usually just because he was apologizing (or sitting and not talking; apparently it's the same thing.) No sign of his famous charisma--people follow him because they're afraid not too.

    Gates, OTOH, comes across as a realy likable guy. He's evil, but in a friendly way, and Apple hands him everything ("here, take the source for the MacOS, please feel free to steal it"). Paul Allen seems to die early in the film and be resurrected as a zombie of some sort. ("Must keep back stiffer...speak less...")

    Oh, and they don't say anything about computers. The Apple I and Lisa are kinda important in a few scenes, the Mac appears out of nowhere (though the Mac team is around long enough for Jobs' to drive them (literally) insane). I don't think we actually see Windows, though it comes up now and then. And then the movie ends with Sculley (sp?) ousting Jobs, followed by a tiny scene from the Apple-MS 'alliance' announcement. No Win95, Next, Pixar, Copland, OS X, etc.

    Still, it isn't as bad as most of what's on TNT.
  • You lose!
  • A thick notebook of research exists to backup every scene

    Yes, with "at least" one source each.

    Scott
    ------
    Scott Stevenson
  • We get TNT on cable in Australia, and it shows stuff from the US (wrestling,nitro and old movies), but this sounds like something decent for a change. I saw the Triumph Of The Nerds series (I still have it on tape) and I seriously hope the ppl at the stations here have enough brains to put it on.

    My bet is that Jobs is depicted as a control freak, and Gates as a power hungry whiner. I'd like to see who plays Woz.

    -----
  • Windows helping me through the baby steps? HAHAHAHAHAHA. I started out on DOS 4. For a while at first, we didn't even have windows. I learded memory management, batch files, etc. right from the DOS 5.0 manual.
  • You can buy the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" and the fairly new one called "Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the internet". They are both WONDERFUL documentary hosted by Robert X. Cringely. Both make you want to go out and revolutionize the world.

    Link to pbs is:

    http://shop.pbs.org/Ed0ik0IkH1/products/A3392/
    There is a review on AppleInsider:

    http://www.appleinsider.com

    TRIUMPH OF THE NERDS AND NERDS 2.0.1: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INTERNET

    Save $5 when you buy both Nerd videos.

    In Triumph of the Nerds, travel to Silicon Valley where the revolution started. Meet the PC pioneers, a group of disenfranchised nerds who saw a niche that needed to be filled. Learn how the PC industry came of age in the 1980s. Look at the seismic changes that are taking place today, and what may lie ahead. Industry leaders including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are profiled and have their say, in this provocative and important series.

    In Nerds 2.0.1, you'll go deep into the bowels of the Pentagon to witness the birth of the Internet and follow its rapid rise to the cutting edge of the World Wide Web. On his journey, Cringely interviews the unknown nerds who laid the Internet's foundations, visits the Silicon Valley of India and grills the founders of the networking companies who have made millions from this fascinating new technology.

    PRICE: $84.93 LENGTH: 6 videocassettes ITEM CODE: A3392-WEBHV

  • Yah, I thought it was originally supposed to air in late May (like the 24th), but the NBA playoffs were on instead. Dang sports screw everything up.


    +--
    Given infinite time, 100 monkeys could type out the complete works of Shakespeare.
  • > A documentary would - in my opinion - be far more appropriate for this subject.

    Then you should check out "Triumph of the nerds" from PBS. This is a pretty good documentary where Jobs, Gates, Allen, Wozniak and many more are interviewed. The documentary is based on the book "Accidental Empires". And as the book says: "Certainly Bill Gates doesn't like to be characterized as a megalomaniac, and Steve Jobs doesn't like to be described as a sociopath, but that's what they are. Trust me." So there's no need to expect a glossed over version of the reality here.

    --
  • PBS already has made a documentary...the exact title escapes me at the moment, but it is something along the lines of Revenge of the nerds...something playing off that...i think...maybe not. But it's there, and it's pretty interesting. Starts out talking about Xerox PARC and IBM and the cultures at those places and then gets into hobby computers like altair and the Apple I and whatnot. Worth seeing...maybe worth calling your local PBS station and requesting...

    [tex]
  • TNT, Channel 17 here in Hawaii, Kauai, showed it about a month ago. It wasn't bad, but it was not very accurate. I was just flipping through the channels, and there it was. I wrote into /. about it, but it didn't make the cut.
  • That was an accidental showing, I think. It was not listed, I just happen to catch it by channel surfing.
  • I pity you.
    Teaching is a challenge, A very rewarding one
  • Sorry, I'm a diehard Breakfast Club fan, and whatever crappy films Anthony Michael Hall may have made since then, he has the capacity to be funny and believable at the same time. I think he'll make a perfect BG.
  • So how often do you go to dinner with Bill? you seem to know him well enough.

    In all reality. Everyone of us is insanely jealous of what Mr. Gates has accomplished. your pissed of that your stuck at your dead end job while he is worth more than many countries (I include myself in that diatribe :).

    "The guy is a total ninny?" Oh man, that's funny. Say what you will abvout him, but he is far from a ninny. No one can argue that his OS's and Apps are less than perfect, but he made his empire by being a shrewd business man, not a good programmer/visionary. To be as successful as he is (and will be.. THE GOV CANT STOP HIM!), you cant be a ninny.

    Don't let your jealousy/envy make you look like a moron.

    QUESTION: If you were given the opportunity to have his life, would you take it?
  • Well I like what you have said because it seemed just. I have no problems with Microsoft or it's products at all. I really don't understand why everyone else does, but that's ok because we all have our reasons. But to me Mr. Gates is just a nerd like you and I who actually made it. More jobs, more software, more computers, and in short more of the things that I like have come about because of what Microsoft and the likes have done. I am actually grateful for what they have done. I am equally grateful for Steve Jobs, and Linus, a fellow Finn, :) and anyone that has contributed to the vast power that I have at my fingertips as I type. People keep saying that Bill Gates has done some thing wrong, but what? I don't feel the effects... In other words as a consumer I'm not hurt at all. Maybe, like everyone keeps saying, in the future there will be trouble, but as of now I am doing fine. I still choose everytime i boot up my computer which OS I load and I use a variety, believe me, of OS's depending on what I want to do. in this world everything rises and falls. So will Microsoft one day fall and I will miss them, but others will come and I will welcome them. So what's the big deal, I as a Linux user will never admit that Microsoft is a monopoly, so that means there is no big deal after all...

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