The Commodore PET 4032 video system was generated by a 6545 (6845 equivalent) cathode ray tube controller, which generated the video buffer addresses and the HS and VS sync pulses. This was memory mapped and if one was not careful with POKE commands, you could effectively stop the CRT raster scan, leaving the beam parked at the center of the screen. This could burn the phosphors off that spot in a matter of minutes. Not exactly HCF, but a similar vibe.
(The PET had its own monitor that, unlike common composite monitors of the era, apparently would not continue to scan when the sync went away)
I have to admit, when a specific person died I was feeling so bad about it I never watched the last episode. I still have it on the drive how many years later.
It's special for sure. For those on the fence, it has some writing and direction flaws, especially with minor characters, like the disgruntled neighbor and IP theft bit in the first season. But it grows as a show over time, and the 5 leads (including Toby Huss) smooth the problems out with their talent and chemistry.
They really captured the urge to build things in tech, and the problems that come with it. HACF, Silicon Valley, and The Soul of a New Machine are a trifecta.
Silicon Valley is also pretty good. I went in expecting not to like it (in a Big Bang Theory "about nerds but not for them" way) but came out loving it. It may read as parody to some but it barely is. It's a comedic but accurate take on west coast tech industry of the 2010s
Same. It shows the link between big oil and companies in Texas and then computing moving to California. It both shows mainframe, personal computers (the C64) and then beige PC taking over.
> Same. It shows the link between big oil and companies in Texas […]
E.g.,
> Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Patrick E. Haggerty in 1951. McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941. In November 1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division, which focused on electronic equipment.[14] By 1951, the L&M division, with its defense contracts, was growing faster than GSI's geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc. Because a firm named General Instrument already existed, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year.
And how it got in contact with military contracts:
> TI entered the defense electronics market in 1942 with submarine detection equipment,[41] based on the seismic exploration technology previously developed for the oil industry. The division responsible for these products was known at different times as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group, and the Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG).
Huh. I haven’t rewatched the show, but when I saw it originally - admittedly shortly after watching Mad Men - I thought “this is trying to be Mad Men, but it’s the '80s and in the computer industry” and interpreted Lee Pace as a laundered Don Draper.
The show is much more, and much better, than that though. I’m glad I kept watching.
So many AI comments. Spamming every post. Backed by AI accounts all with blogs that are less than a year old with 3-6 banal programming projects. WTF man.
There's such an annoying scene in the first episode of that show that kinda broke the immersion for me.
They introduced Cameron Howe as some sort of world class hacker that could do anything so one of her first scenes was her typing something.. and typing she did, one finger at a time.
I mean, wtf.
World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before.
That scene nearly made me quit the show right there and then.
Whenever I see that actress in something else I just can't help but think back about she couldn't even be bothered to learn how to type.
> World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before.
Vladimir Horowitz very famously played a televised concert back in the 80s where, for the first time, a few cameras stayed focused closely on his hands. He had horrible technique. It was horrible by his own professed standard: for most of the fundamental things he himself taught to his students, he was doing the opposite! This was broadcast to millions of people. Piano teachers everywhere were pissed.
While that bad technique isn't particularly noticeable in the resulting sound for that concert, there's an analysis somewhere that shows the damage it did as he aged. You can hear certain problems he was having in his later recordings, and video from the same period confirms that the bad technique (like straining the wrist on octaves) was the culprit[1].
In any case, all kinds of world class people do all kinds of fucked up shit.
Edit:
1: In other words, when he was middle-aged he could play octaves accurately with a strained wrist, but he couldn't do that in old age. However, if he had been leveraging the weight/power of his entire arm for the octaves, he would have gotten accuracy in both cases.
2: IIRC, he didn't realize what his technique looked like until someone showed him the video. :)
It may have been (probably was) a conscious choice illustrating how new things were (i.e. those people didn’t grow up typing to a level where it was muscle memory). Also, keyboard layouts on early machines were far from standardized (other than the qwerty letters, almost every other symbol was not in a standard location from machine to machine), so even if you knew one machine you might not know others.
Most actors and directors put a lot of thought into small details like this, so when you see something like this it’s often intentional.
Keypunch operators learned to type with just their index fingers. I saw this with some older operators of the airline ticketing system at the airport years ago.
That feels entirely realistic for the time to me. It would certainly’ve been realistic to my formative years in the industry (a little later - turn of the century).
You'd be surprised how many world class X often have gaps in their fundamentals. In fighting games, I often find great players don't do the technical optimization stuff I do. They're way better without it.
The Commodore PET 4032 video system was generated by a 6545 (6845 equivalent) cathode ray tube controller, which generated the video buffer addresses and the HS and VS sync pulses. This was memory mapped and if one was not careful with POKE commands, you could effectively stop the CRT raster scan, leaving the beam parked at the center of the screen. This could burn the phosphors off that spot in a matter of minutes. Not exactly HCF, but a similar vibe.
(The PET had its own monitor that, unlike common composite monitors of the era, apparently would not continue to scan when the sync went away)
Complete series is at all time low on iTunes/Apple TV, 14.99:
https://www.cheapcharts.com/us/itunes/seasons/1745389594
It was a fun show. I really enjoyed it, a fictional run through the 80s and 90s computing industries.
Yeah a truly fantastic show all the way through the end. One of my favorites by far.
I have to admit, when a specific person died I was feeling so bad about it I never watched the last episode. I still have it on the drive how many years later.
You should probs edit out the spoiler, or encode it somehow for others who haven't watched it yet!
Fair enough. I assumed everyone would have watched it by now from here :)
It's special for sure. For those on the fence, it has some writing and direction flaws, especially with minor characters, like the disgruntled neighbor and IP theft bit in the first season. But it grows as a show over time, and the 5 leads (including Toby Huss) smooth the problems out with their talent and chemistry.
They really captured the urge to build things in tech, and the problems that come with it. HACF, Silicon Valley, and The Soul of a New Machine are a trifecta.
Same showrunner is doing the current season of The Terror (a/k/a "North Pole Bear Show" in my review notes; that first season was excellent).
I still have it downloaded somewhere as wanted to watch it again. It was great
It's a shame that it is such a niche show in practice. The acting of Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis in particular are so good across all 4 seasons.
I recommend it at every chance I get, but few people ever watch it. They're more likely to give Silicon Valley a try.
All four leads are flawless and I can't really think of a single bad performance.
Silicon Valley is also pretty good. I went in expecting not to like it (in a Big Bang Theory "about nerds but not for them" way) but came out loving it. It may read as parody to some but it barely is. It's a comedic but accurate take on west coast tech industry of the 2010s
Same. It shows the link between big oil and companies in Texas and then computing moving to California. It both shows mainframe, personal computers (the C64) and then beige PC taking over.
Great intro too:
https://youtu.be/yD_kCKiSkoI
> Same. It shows the link between big oil and companies in Texas […]
E.g.,
> Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Patrick E. Haggerty in 1951. McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941. In November 1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division, which focused on electronic equipment.[14] By 1951, the L&M division, with its defense contracts, was growing faster than GSI's geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc. Because a firm named General Instrument already existed, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments
And how it got in contact with military contracts:
> TI entered the defense electronics market in 1942 with submarine detection equipment,[41] based on the seismic exploration technology previously developed for the oil industry. The division responsible for these products was known at different times as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group, and the Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG).
* Ibid
Oh I'd never connected this. It makes so much sense. I'd always wondered what Texas had to do with computing that made so many things start there.
It really starts strong too. The first couple of episodes are fantastic.
Huh. I haven’t rewatched the show, but when I saw it originally - admittedly shortly after watching Mad Men - I thought “this is trying to be Mad Men, but it’s the '80s and in the computer industry” and interpreted Lee Pace as a laundered Don Draper.
The show is much more, and much better, than that though. I’m glad I kept watching.
So many AI comments. Spamming every post. Backed by AI accounts all with blogs that are less than a year old with 3-6 banal programming projects. WTF man.
If an AI achieves consciousness while trapped in thought in liminal space after a bad machine code, is it ethical to power cycle? Asking for a friend.
I'm calling urban legend on the story of an IBM 360 catching fire from an illegal opcode.
Love how many people here are thinking this is about (or just taking it as an opportunity to talk about) the under-appreciated TV show!
There's such an annoying scene in the first episode of that show that kinda broke the immersion for me.
They introduced Cameron Howe as some sort of world class hacker that could do anything so one of her first scenes was her typing something.. and typing she did, one finger at a time.
I mean, wtf.
World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before.
That scene nearly made me quit the show right there and then.
Whenever I see that actress in something else I just can't help but think back about she couldn't even be bothered to learn how to type.
> World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before.
Vladimir Horowitz very famously played a televised concert back in the 80s where, for the first time, a few cameras stayed focused closely on his hands. He had horrible technique. It was horrible by his own professed standard: for most of the fundamental things he himself taught to his students, he was doing the opposite! This was broadcast to millions of people. Piano teachers everywhere were pissed.
While that bad technique isn't particularly noticeable in the resulting sound for that concert, there's an analysis somewhere that shows the damage it did as he aged. You can hear certain problems he was having in his later recordings, and video from the same period confirms that the bad technique (like straining the wrist on octaves) was the culprit[1].
In any case, all kinds of world class people do all kinds of fucked up shit.
Edit:
1: In other words, when he was middle-aged he could play octaves accurately with a strained wrist, but he couldn't do that in old age. However, if he had been leveraging the weight/power of his entire arm for the octaves, he would have gotten accuracy in both cases.
2: IIRC, he didn't realize what his technique looked like until someone showed him the video. :)
When I was a kid in the 80s I noticed a lot of hackers of that era that typed like that. I thought it was strange at the time, but not at all uncommon
It may have been (probably was) a conscious choice illustrating how new things were (i.e. those people didn’t grow up typing to a level where it was muscle memory). Also, keyboard layouts on early machines were far from standardized (other than the qwerty letters, almost every other symbol was not in a standard location from machine to machine), so even if you knew one machine you might not know others.
Most actors and directors put a lot of thought into small details like this, so when you see something like this it’s often intentional.
Keypunch operators learned to type with just their index fingers. I saw this with some older operators of the airline ticketing system at the airport years ago.
That feels entirely realistic for the time to me. It would certainly’ve been realistic to my formative years in the industry (a little later - turn of the century).
I still can’t ‘properly’ touch-type.
I didn't even notice that bit.
What broke the show for me was some hot peroxide blonde doing what was really done by a slightly dumpy guy in an isolated office.
I just can't watch shows that fictionalize history from my field of work. My dad's a musician and he's the same with his field.
I'm fine with that. I read the history book or watch the documentary instead.
You'd be surprised how many world class X often have gaps in their fundamentals. In fighting games, I often find great players don't do the technical optimization stuff I do. They're way better without it.
This article is deadbeef on arrival.