Spontification - Halt And Catch Fire: A Modern History Lesson
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ก.ค. 2024
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What if you could go back to the 1980s and live through the wonder and awe of a home computing revolution? AMC's Halt and Catch Fire is something magical in its ability to weave a story of dreamers and architects whose stories relate far more to your average desktop computer than many people realize.
Halt and Catch Fire captivated me when I first started watching it back in 2015, and though I still haven't taken the time to sit down and watch the last season, the idea behind this modern history lesson started over the summer. Halt and Catch Fire is anomalous in its passion computing history, and we're lucky to see such a thoughtful commentary on the time see itself to the very end.
Thanks for watching! - บันเทิง
"Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets us to the thing" - I loved that line!
This is my "Breaking Bad". This is my "Mad Men". It breaks my heart in the best way possible.
Just like the T-Mobile advertisement just said, "Who says you can't have it all?".
Just like Breaking Bad, House M.D., Mr. Robot, as well as Halt and Catch Fire are my favorite TV series'.
..With a few other very notable shows falling in extremely close behind.
Me too. I miss them all.
Halt and Catch Fire was one of my favorite shows and it breaks my heart it never got the attention it deserved.
Thank you for raising attention on the show. You are one of my favorite channels here and seeing you raise attention on this is amazing.
Really bummed Halt is over.
Living Abstraction i was late to the game, i caught a late episode in s3 and was hooked. The actors and writers were so good. The show is was never marketed well by AMC, if this exact show ended up one subscription streaming services they wouldve gotten nominations and award coming out of their ass
One silver lining is AMC let the show runners continue and then finish the story they set out to tell. A rarity in TV these days....
Definitely one of the most underrated shows of the last decade. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll say one of the last episodes of the last season was so sad but beautifully done that I cried like a baby. I've never cried during TV show in my life and I watch everything. I love this show. Ill re watch it soon.
They could have kept it going until 2017 but they ended it in the early 1990s. Just sad.
@@acetate909 I recently watched the whole series and I completely agree. I feel awful for not watching it sooner, and I also cried during that episode, something I also have never done. That truly can show all of us (who have seen it) the power of a beautifully written narrative, and the emotional connection that it can make with its audience.
I never once skipped the intro to the show!
Sad to see it end 😔
The composer, Paul Haslinger, has a slim presence on Spotify. That intro is branded on my heart!
I'm going to say that this is one of the rare shows that got better every season up to and including its final season. One of my favourite shows ever.
I also think Halt and Catch Fire is arguably one of the best depictions of passion for your work on TV.
"No. I want more." That really resonated with me.
Genius, family, love, ambition, failure to live up to expectations, being an outsider in all ways, and the hope and expertise that it takes to rise again, is what this show encapsulates perfectly in its four seasons. A perfect show in its totality.
Not just baby boomers: I am a millennial and I loved the show. Quite like you, I didn’t catch every Easter egg out there but I did understand many subtleties of the show. And that’s why I loved it. And that’s why I am here.
Ditto from a Gen X-er.
I get the feeling that Baby Boomers aren't really into this show. I've seen on forums they've been pretty dismissive and said some shit like they know like, "I was there and the tech was wrong." Especially concerning the first season. But I am of that "Oregon Trail Generation" in between Gen X and Millenials if you believe that. But I'm in that sweet spot like one of the writers where my dad was in the Texas tech industry same time this show takes place. He worked at Data General though in Houston, not Compaq. But weirdly while the Giant ends up looking more advanced than the Compaq portable, it actually looks a lot like the first IBM laptop (the PC Convertible) in the final design. So some people will say, "hey this is wrong because it wasn't possible yet."
However in the show the release for the Giant keeps getting delayed until it's released almost a full year after the Compaq Portable it was mimicking. So it became 1984 not 1983. And while the PC Convertible didn't come out until 1986, the Giant still was not unrealistic for 1984. I know this because of the Data General One, an extremely early laptop if not the first that my dad carried around for his job, which was released about the same time as the fictional Giant in 1984. I also played some DOS games on the four color amber screen. The show makes a big deal out of getting the LCD screen deal, which is what the Data General One made use of so that it was a laptop and not a portable. I don't think the Data General One did so great in sales, apparently having two 3 1/2" floppy drives was too cutting edge for the time.
I tried to ask Christopher Cantwell about any of this to see how aware he was about Data General, since perhaps his dad also dealt with the company in the '80s but no answer. I would be extremely curious to know if the creators were aware of it.
@@syntheticgerbil - Sounds like you're my same age, and that you know this stuff better than me. I remember some Atari systems had two 5½" drives, but I don't ever remember seeing two 3¼" drives.
Geez, it's been so long! Did I even get the fractions right?
@@BradyPostma Haha, yeah you mixed up the two fractions, but full disclosure, I had to look it up before I typed it myself since I wasn't entirely sure!
My household didn't do much with the 5 1/4" My dad religiously copied any game he got in that format to a 3 1/2" right out of the box.
@@syntheticgerbil - I remember we had an Atari when I was little, and it took cartridges and 5¼" floppies. My first programming experiences were loading up BASIC and copying a few pages of code out of a book called something like "The Big Book of BASIC Games." I didn't know what the code meant, but I knew there had to be zero typos for it to work right.
I was 7 or 8.
"The thing that gets you into the thing... is you" I love this show and i watched all 40 episodes of it. Joe and Cam's chemistry was intense
Halt and Catch Fire, what a show it was. I relived my early bachleorhood when I would spend my days and nights on Atari, buying my first 486 PC, then moving onto Pentium series. The first time I saw movie playing on a computer. Learning my first programming language, getting introduced with Yahoo as a search engine and Netscape as a well known competitor to Internet Explorer. MIRC was another miracle and revolution in instant messaging. This show I can completely relate from head to toe. I can watch it again and again and again. Best show ever created.
My wife and I loved this show.Hard to find anything comparable.
Spoiler alertish: Watch this show and do not read: IMO the big shock, was the most beautiful end of a character ever captured.
The lens flares and lights that hinted at it got me choked up. Halt is on the TV Mt Rushmore.
I thought I saw every episode. What’s the big shock?
@@alexjay7183 There are four seasons. There is a big character twist in the second half of season 4. Don't want to say more than that.
@@DavidWilliams-yh2ml what, Gordon's death?
So true. I wasn't sure what I had just witnessed. I started questioning what happened and was it real. The most beautiful death I've ever watched.
I was born in the early 90s, so I missed this era. But though I grew up in a world where computers were abundant, playing with already outdated cast-offs from my Dad's friends (I had a windows 3.11 machine!) I became fascinated by the computers of the generation which preceded me. I remember the first time I encountered a BBC micro, being fascinated and a little jealous. While the operating systems I used were enormously complex, millions of bytes of impenetrable instructions conceiled beneath a user-friendly veneer, the home computers seemed, by contrast, raw, unfiltered; designed not to present an abstract graphical interface to a few proprietary office tools, but to be open, spartan support structures for whatever the user had the creativity to write. The windows desktop felt safe, sanitary and familiar, while the sparse black screen and blinking cursor of the beeb felt like an exhortation, so inviting in its promise of power and freedom that it still makes my hair stand on end. As I grew older, and learned more, my fascination grew. I can't picture a gigabyte, I can't picture a billion of anything. And a moden OS stack, with its gigabytes of software layered on software, fades into the same fuzzy black box magic when I try to comprehend what's going on. But a kilobyte? I can picture that. The whole address space of the 8 bit processors would fit only a few pages of text, and at that scale I can see in my minds eye the machine zipping and skipping back and forth through the program. I mean the machine, the real machine, not a convenient abstraction, that little construction of thousands (!) of transistors, the hardware, the metal. It's there, it's real, the silicon, the copper, so close you can almost reach into the screen and touch it. Oh man! It still gets me. How I wish I could've lived and worked through those days and felt the electric thrill of the new age dawning first hand. I guess I will have to be satisfied with programmes like this!
This was one of the best written comments I have ever read. Quite poetic for someone who is so tech savvy. An enjoyable read.
The title "A modern history lesson" is so accurate. Very well done video and opinion. I love this TV show.
Fazt it's a great surprise to see you here
I discovered this gem while being held up in the hospital in 2014. I've purchased the entire series and love the accuracy and amazing characters. I remember struggling though BASIC on the Apple II at our college computer lab. But I became hooked in 1985, when I began to use the Macintosh 128. And never forget the modem sounds when logging in with my 486, using Windows 3.1.
“I know that something’s coming. Something big, like a train, and all I want is to jump on board. But it’s getting faster and faster and I’m terrified I’m going to miss it … I don’t want to get left behind.”
I lived through that era in my 20s-30s, and was an early computer user at work, then at home (my husband and I purchased an Apple IIe for personal use, early on). I went on to work in computer typography and graphics, using coding back in the early 80s; and was also an early user of Photoshop, Illustrator, and a now-forgotten page layout program called Quark.
One thing many reviewers ignore is the social history outside of tech that HACF portrayed. The entry of women into executive positions in business; the AIDS crisis; explorations of sexuality and gender. Among others.
I adore this show, and literally shed tears when it ended. One of my favorites series ever.
This is one of my favorite shows of all time I was sad when it was over because I fell in love with the characters. The competition it felt like very episode was almost like a race. Even though there was not alot of action. The show really truly had you in suspense through the dialogue and time period changes it made you want to know more. I'm glad you did this video you captured the explaintion and meaning very well.
For that you a sub
love love love this show, I was born 89 but feel this era so much more nostalgic & relatable than today's frenzied culture where trends come & go so quickly it feels like nothing matters anymore
This show is inspiring. The "It Speaks" moment is one of the best scenes I have ever seen. It is a history lesson. And the soundtrack, is out of this world!
Halt and Catch Fire was just great.
The most underrated TV show ever period
Also it's one of the greatest shows ever made.
Also you GOTTA watch season 4 it's great. Let us know what you think of it.
(Ps thanks for showing thus under seen show some love)
From a kid that grew up in the 70's and 80's - Nicely done. I personally lived this. First PC was a C= VIC 20, then the 64, 128 and off to Windows.and IBM Clones. I remember the internet in the 80's - bulletin boards, ComuServe, AOL and more. They did a really good job here.
Incredible show from start to finish.
Watched this from start to finish in lockdown! Greatest tv show ever made. How i missed this first time round is beyond me.. masterfully crafted
Great stuff. Just finished the show this morning. It officially moved into my top ten list TV show alongside Friday Night Lights.
Is Friday night lights similar to halt and catch fire ?
@@cameronhowe1110 They are both character-driven shows. I enjoy shows like that much more that plot-driven shows. Both of them ended on very satisfying note.
"Up to 2024" has aged perfectly in the era of LLMs and AI craze of May 2024.
I actually didn't have much access to PC's in my early years. I do remember my uncle having one since he was big telecom engineer in the 90's. My cousin and I setup yahoo emails which I still use lol. We downloaded Napster music and hung around chats. I still remember the modem connection sound and disk drives sounds. HCF brought so many memories.
Years later I find myself rewatching clips of this show to reinspire me to study more!
This channel is such a gem. It so high quality, I just don't understand why the view count doesn't reflect.
Good video. Halt and Catch Fire was one of my favorite shows of recent times (as is Mr Robot presently), mainly because I was introduced to computer technology at the dawn of the desktop era. My "computing" career began in 1981 when I was roped into managing a Data General minicomputer running RDOS. Over the years I witnessed the evolution of the Mac and early Intel PCs, and used both in my work. At home I started with a Sinclair ZX 81 (with the expandable memory), then moved to a BBC Micro, and eventually to an Amiga 1000 (a lovely machine!). I didn't start using Intel-based PCs at home until Windows 95 had become established, and went from 95 to XP (which I used for the longest time), then Vista, Windows 7, and finally Windows 10. I never took to Macs the way I went for the array of devices just mentioned. I just wasn't cool. :(
I have been in love with 80s tech since I was a small child in the eighties. If a genie granted me a wish, it'd be to be a programmer from 1979 to 1989. I learned programming by typing BASIC programs character by character out of a book of BASIC games into an old Atari (2600? Not sure.) before I was old enough to know what half the words meant. Later, I learned 8086 and Z-80 asm when it was probably too late for that to be relevant to any career path.
It sounds like you lived my dream.
My dad worked at Data General in Houston all through the '80s! I'm not entirely sure what he did all the time. "Engineer" was his title. He had to travel a lot to fix the minicomputers. At least I think so? He sucks at communicating and we don't have the best relationship as adults.
He had one of those Data General Ones, one of the earliest laptops but not called a "laptop." I always wonder if they were at all the influence of the Giant as it finally manifested rather than the Compaq Portable it followed the story of.
best tv series ever . i have seen many but this one i can't stop loving u will fall in love with both Joe and Cameron
Great video, and awesome tribute to an excellent show. Thanks!
Damn, Emperor Cleon has been cloning himself since the 80's
Hands down my fav show in years!!!
I need to revisit this. I stopped watching around season 2, back when it was coming out on AMC. Something reminded me of it and now I'm gonna start back at season 1 episode 1.
I miss this show!
This show is One of my favourite series of all time, I loved every season of it, and it deserves a lot more recongition than it currently has
This video is really great. Thanks so much for creating/posting.
Proud to say I am a boomer and enjoyed both this succinct appraisal of the show and the era but also the show itself - it got the detail right, I doubt we will see such a period of growth and discovery like this again any time soon.
Halt And Catch Fire low-key changed my life.
I'm glad I've found this channel, always good analysis and understanding of the subjects in a way that's not overly arrogant or loud. This video in particular convinced me to watch a show I had personally never heard of or just overlooked entirely; more impressive is that it was done without using several scenes in their entirety but rather speaking on its appeals and possible value to an audience, which a review or look over a show should be.
Since this channel's inception, I've pretty much had only ONE goal with my videos: Don't shout.
An awesome review I love this show it's brilliant and every season is great
Remember when i was a kid and my dad bought our first pc, it was a atari 800xt with a tapedeck. I was four years old and never will miss the time with all the stuff like c64, amiga or connecting to other pcs via telephone (and when my parants went crazy as the get the phone bill over 400 bucks) xD
I think season 1 was filmed more or less under the shadow of Mad Men (A fast paced replacement of Mad Men). The series grow into something of its own later on.
Schawn Leeds Yes, but the show continued to carry the biggest flaw of all AMC original shows.....The wives and Gfs of the main characters were extremely unlikable. As much as the show wanted to make everyone dislike Joe, I hated Donna 10x more.
First season was best one
@@WilliamBrinkley45 See I don't see it like that at all. I was relating to Donna all the way through season 1 and 2. Even with her flaws she was so easy to understand. Cam was very frustrating for those two seasons because she reminded me of my younger self, extremely obnoxious and idealistic. eventually between 2 and 3 they change. Cam is easily the most likeable on the show. Her and Gordon's friendship is my favorite part. I think maybe they overdid Donna the villain a bit, but there's a wake up call with how she acts towards Bos that reverses it a bit.
And actually the writers themselves said they toyed around each season with having the characters switch their roles with eachother. And that's amazing because it not only shows growth (and not even in only the positive sense) but that they still shaped their personality around the role they had to play, just how we do it in real life.
But also season 4, the daughters really did the show well.
Loved this show. It reminded me of trying to train users and sell websites in 1995 when businesses still did not understand why they needed a website, an exciting frontier. This show is great!! Thank you AMC!!
I just rewatched it. Gave it an 8 the first time, now I give it a 9/10.
Also, I had watched Mad Men just before. Felt like Joe MacMillan was a focused incarnation of Don Draper.
This show reminds me of my uncle in the 80s when I was growing up. He had been a programmer for the department of defense during the 70s And early 80s but from the late 80s until he passed in 2014, he was programming and working on product design for several computer corporations like Compaq, IBM, and intel and sold custom servers and specialized machines on the side out of a computer store he co-owned with his wife (she was also a programmer)
The character arcs went beyond what I ever expected.
I was looking for a show after Mad Men and ended up finding a show with way more soul than I anticipated.
Best IT drama imo. And one of the best shows ever...
first season is the best hands down
This show gave me the confidence to install a VirtualBox Windows PC on my MacBook Pro. I did it just to play the original Age of Empires. I was astounded that the architecture of Windows and its system for sorting drives and file store folders has not changed an iota in over 25 years! O_O
I loved this show. A modern history lesson indeed.
This channel is criminally underrated. I hope you come back. Well done video essays are lacking these days. You have my sub.
I hate when people say that season 1 was the "weakest" goddamnit season 1 was a fucking rollercoaster of holy shit. Its what got me hooked. Season 1 is my favorite to this day. I loved what the show became, but to cast season 1 aside...is just.... Well, people that do that dont really understand what happened in it.
LEE PACE
YESS
I.loved this show.since the moment it came out. The actors and characters were incredible. And the 80s-90s aesthetics were incredible.
I cannot believe this is literally the only show that really tried to capture that particular era and the rise of the home computer saga. It is probably one of the most profound and important histories of our current time! (okay okay, I am a bit biased because I love that shit because the tail end of it was my childhood).
You might be interested in checking out The Computer Chronicles (if you haven't yet). Excellent content documenting the golden age of computing.
Wonderful video! Really captures why the show felt so powerful to me
Computers were not even the last thing I'd think of when I was in primary school. I started to become aware of them by high school and college, when punched card technology arrived in public school. I saw computers in movies and TV, but no one I knew had any kind of computer; those were huge tape machines leased by IBM to big companies. The CP/M wave, along with Kaypro and Osborne 1 were curiosities; what was I going to do with a computer? Then two things happened; I got a job at a Photo/Portrait studio that used an IBM PC, and my brother-in-law dropped his Leading Edge D in my lap. Life changed very quickly in the 1990s as I took over the care and feeding of the 512K monochrome display 20MB HDD 5.25" floppy drive IBM XT. In time, with computer stores on every corner and computer books taking over book stores like Borders, I upgraded the XT to 640K color and replaced the 20MB HDD when a dreaded "cannot find command interpreter" message meant a 40MB HDD was the next step up. Color was required for the dbase program, which led to XTree 2.0 and PC Geos, aka GeoWorks 1.0. So, "Halt And Catch Fire" was a way to visit "Silicone Prarie" and see how the likes of Compaq made my other-side-of-the-tracks PC clone world possible.
+Otokichi786 I love this story.
So were you crippled for life after the Leading Edge incident? The metal computers in those days were very heavy! I think even the Compaq Portable was 28 lbs.
@@squirlmy That 7Mhz sorta-IBM-compatible, dual 5.25" floppy computer was eventually upgraded to a 40MB HDD. The "does this program run on the not-quite-IBM-compatilbe" dance got tiresome after a while. I made sure that the next computer (a 80386SX clone desktop) was 100% IBM compatible.
2:33 - Season 1 the WEAKEST of the series?! My perception was that it was by far the best. Maybe because that era's technology is dearest to my heart and most familiar to my mind, but that season struck me as approaching nearer to television perfection than I ever thought possible.
BradyPostma same, they were all great but it all started with season 1...perfection
Season 1 was cool man, I love the Slingshot lol also Joe Macmillan being a complete dick / + Joes past....it also sets up the cycles everyone likes to relive.
Season 1 gets dogged on unfairly. I agree I really enjoyed it
i just finished the show yesterday... WHAT A FKNG MASTERPIECE.
season 1 was the best season. joe in his element at its best. the drama wasnt crazy apparent yet. focused on the tech more than other seasons. great series
This show is inspiration af and also hit hard emotionally especially the season finally 💚
for me season 1 is the best of them
You just did this show some justice, ty!
A fantastic essay with wonderful observations. I’m pleased you don’t just eulogise the show’s successes, but instead you’re pragmatic about what it did right alongside how it underachieved. One of my top 5 shows of all time. But then again... I’m one of those kids you talked about.
Thank you for making this.
Beautifully said. Thank you!
For those of us who lived through this period this is the best series ever aired.
Favorite show of all time
Loved this show and it was great how they got an actor that looked like a young John Carmack to play one of the coders at Mutany.
Just found this series on Netflix a few days ago and I'm already tearing through seasons
Addictive serial , once you start you can't stop
Wonderful review. Great show.
Gawd! I LOVE this show!
first season was by far the strongest
This is one of the best TV Shows like Silicon Valley. Best acting and script. Can watch it again.
Great show 👌 this video is excellent
Thank you for this Video
Awesome video!
Love the show - good review
I think it is a great show because it shows the hard work with sweat and tears of pioneers and entrepeneurs inside the world of business while being realistic. I think Hollywood lacks these kind of series/movies. Japan has those kinds of series like Hanzawa Naoki or Vulgars.
Awesome show.
God bless You. Great video essay
Nice presentation. Yeah - this series really grabbed me - watched it twice when Netflix had it. For me it's probably one of the best series ever. Didn't writers from the Sopranos also write for Mad Men, and Halt, and Catch Fire ?
I love the season 3 soooo much
It was a great show!
This is more about the time when the show took place and how important computers became than it is about the show itself.
Yeah, I agree, it is really epic.
I absolutely love halt and catch fire. I identify with those people as I grew up in that area as well my first computer was the Apple II in like 1980 I was a teenager. I was really upset how they rushed the timeline in the last season and the way they ended it it was absolutely horrible they just completely rushed it and made it up it felt like. I’ve never been so excited in my life for a new episode than I was at that time what a major let down and disappointment on AMC’s part they never even asked us for Opinions or a chance to voice that we would like you to continue halt and catch fire.
Awesome video
amazing soundtrack
The thing about this show that hit me hardest is that in the era of Gates and Jobs there were all these tech geniuses that never hit it big because they were too human. Makes you wonder about those that did hit it big.
Great job
AMAZING content! This is great - We love the show and have just launched a podcast off the back of the rewatch. Are you planning on adding new episodes?
This show has more personal approachment then maybe they would brought one to us from silicon valley.Because if you arent in the centre or in the nexus of the revolutionary events you have lesser chance to create some extraordinary thing outside the circle.
Season 1 was the best of the subsequent narratives, dealing with the sell and marketing. They did not invent anything new or revolutionary in terms of hardware, but hyped their way into making a venue in the burgeoning market and against established competition.
The best series on Netflix.
I only watched this show because of Lee Pace is in it. I’m half way thru season four and have really enjoyed it. I must admit though, Lee is the reason I’ve stuck with it.
Season one was great. Three and four were repetitive and unimaginative. I fell in love with this show in the beginning and after season two it was just infuriating