Subj : HCF Halt and Catch Fire
To   : Mike Powell
From : August Abolins
Date : Thu May 14 2020 05:31:46

On 5/10/2020 6:51 PM, between "Mike Powell : AUGUST ABOLINS":

 MP> Yes, I enjoyed it... the episodes about the technical stuff
 MP> more than some of the others that get more into the
 MP> interpersonal stuff. That is also good TV but I really got
 MP> into their push to build a PC and some of their later
 MP> endeavors.

I dragged myself through episode 3 (1st season).  There was stuff in there that seemed unnecessary and a bit of a distraction.

I think it was in episode 2 that the ex-IBM guy convinces the engineer to use his own money to buy the computer equipment for reverse engineering. I found that unrealistic.  The ex-IBM guy is surely still quite wealthy (fancy car, fancy apartment, fancy clothes, etc..) Yet, it is the family-man who has to come up with the money for the computer equipment? That made little sense.

The production values feel like a low-budget Canadian series.  I can look past that and focus on the tech/engineering elements.  I read that things pick up nicely in ep 4 and onward.

Except for using the early unix-based networked computers on campus, my first use of a PC was a genuine IBM PC in my first professional job in 1993.  But even there, I primarily worked with a DEC VAX 11 machine.  I had a shared terminal parked just outside my cubicle intended to be split between 5 people.  Honestly, I can't remember what I needed to use it for except to lookup or print some basic reports based on parts inventory.  Boring!  But I did help some people "fix" their report programs when they needed a special feature.

A couple years later, I had a 286/AT AMD based.  I started goofing around with RBBS BBS software on that.

But I digress..

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