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"It's gonna have a handle" So the show's about them developing an Osbourne. I can just imagine the impassioned sales pitches. "With more power and compatibility than an IBM, and it weighs, just 15kg!"
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Jun 9, 2014 10:12
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 20:45 |
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Well all three have degrees of instability. Joe has burnt several bridges and is about to set fire to the one he's currently crossing, setting them up to die in about two months, short of them pulling a miracle out from thin air. They're definitely painting him as someone who at least knows just enough about computers to understand how they work, can read minimum code but doesn't have the patience to sit down and write code and who sees programmers as human computers who make him money. Gordon is a recovering alcoholic (Dr. Pepper is his anti-drug) who's only being propped up by an unexpected promotion and the warm fuzzy glow that was Joe recognizing his talents, which is somewhat dampened by Joe sending the company hurtling towards a cliff-face. It's pretty clear that it's him vs the wife and they seem to be throwing up the idea that he and Cameron might end up having a fling out of "kindred spirits". Cameron pretty much is the wild card. She's virtually a drifter who's sleeping in the office and has little care for life and I think they're toying with the idea that she could jump ship to IBM if she sees the company start to sink. Joe does see her as a one trick pony who can at least setup enough framework for Gordon to build on. Her lofty ambitions isn't completely ahead of her time as she seems savvy enough to know about ARPANET and Usenet, she just envisions a situation where it's not just limited to a few people.
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Jun 11, 2014 00:40
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It's kind of telling when a hard drive recovery is more engrossing than the characters.
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Jun 26, 2014 10:34
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Cool Cherry Cream posted:Did something like their proto-Siri actually exist in the 80's? code: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.
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Jul 23, 2014 14:58
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unlimited shrimp posted:I imagine the novelty would wear off pretty quick, but maybe it really would have been mindblowing back then. 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.
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Jul 25, 2014 04:25
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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.
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Jul 28, 2014 15:35
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 20:45 |
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God this show was so, muddled in where it wanted to go. I think the biggest issues is having to hold them back from achieving implausible leaps and bounds with technology and I recall reading somewhere the slight struggles in getting people to not drip off terms as if they were everyday. What worked is when they were given actual situations and challenges to fight against, the rest of the time it sort of was mired in household drama for the week - even the half half affair wasn't really much of an impact. The finale was interesting in that the characters sort of changed places. Gordon became Joe, Cameron became Gordon (circa his mainframe glory days) Donna sort of follows, and Joe realised he couldn't hold up the image of himself anymore so heads bush to find himself. Beyond that, the rest of the episode was pretty flat and somewhat anticlimactic, they achieve the goal - despite Joe burning some of the stock and season 2 (if any) hangs on the balance of the fact Gordon has no idea what's next, Cameron certainly does and Joe's channeling a "Steve Jobs in the wilderness of India / The NEXT exile" on a budget. The other thing was there was no real payoff to almost any of the dramatic situations, no one mentions the stock being lost - unless it was claimed as damages, and Donna's mid life crisis is sort of glossed over - Gordon doesn't seem to bat an eyelid while she hangs around the house getting high and eating oreos. The whole thing really could have worked as a Season 2 opener as it does set the stage for the whole team going separate ways and having to find a way to come together to make the next best thing. BogDew fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 03:24
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