🀄️ 💶 👩🏻‍🚒 Halt and Catch Fire - a team that deserves an adaptation 🤴🏾 🕠 🧜🏾

Greetings to all Habrachan and Habrachanok!

Thank you all for such support! Together we have come a long and interesting journey through the universes of all the key films and series in the IT world. Together we tried to understand the series “Mr. Robot” , together we discussed the best comedies about us and we were able to think together about philosophical cinema in IT . It was the turn of the final article about a unique, in my opinion, series - “Halt and Catch Fire”. It is unique in that the series is about the history of IT. The film tells about the way the whole industry went before being transformed into the industry familiar to us. Many have been waiting for this article and I will try to tell as much as possible about this series, which many of us liked.

Already a traditional disclaimer and we are starting.

Disclaimer

, — IT-, . - . , , IT. - , . . .

Before starting, I would like to say that if you liked this format of our communication about TV shows, I would like to continue working and talk with you about games. Work on the next article about games for geeks and IT specialists is already underway. The selection is very large (60+ games about us and you). Let's continue our cycle together!

Well, let's get down to the sweet - the series.
Caution! Spoilers

Unusual name

Free translation:

Freeze and burn.

This is an early computer team including a race mode in the device, forcing all programs to compete for the championship.

You cannot restore computer control.

At the very beginning of the film, it seems that we are being prepared for the final conclusion (about it a little later). In the first 20 seconds of the series, its name is explained - the team causing the race of programs.

This name comes from an old city legend: on one computer of the 1960s, everything increased and increased the speed of magnetic memory stitched with thin wires. The increased currents did not interfere with normal operation, however, the HLT operation (Halt, waiting for a signal from an external device) was implemented as "if there was no signal, jump to the same address." Repeated reading of the same cell led to the burnout of the corresponding wire.

Plot

Outside 1983. We are in Dallas, Texas a year after IBM introduced its innovative product, the IBM PC, to the market. Joe (a former IBM employee) boldly decides to overtake his former employers and take over the personal computer market. He takes the engineer Gordon and the programmer Cameron to his team. The race has begun!

Saying something else about the plot is pointless. This race needs to be watched.

main characters

Joe MacMillan

Joe is IBM's sales executive who exudes charisma. When he appears on Cardiff Electric, he essentially holds a leadership position in the sales department. After receiving the job, he immediately organizes a plan for reengineering the product of his former employer and creating something better, but his ultimate goal is unknown. While Joe is selling a new personal computer, he enlisted the support of Gordon Clark and Cameron Howe to create the next generation product .

In the process of their work, Joe repeatedly challenges employees. Joe wanted Gordon to assemble a seemingly unsuitable machine for assembly, and Cameron wrote the operating system from scratch, although she was a student.

His image is very reminiscent of Steve Jobs. He is also totalitarian, also ambitious and also strive for success not thanks, but against all odds.

Gordon Clark

If Macmillan is Jobs, then Clark is his Wozniak. Gordon is a promising engineer who longs to redo his past before the humiliating and public failure of Symphonic, the computer he created with his wife Donna. After the failure, Gordon moved with his family to Dallas, Donna's hometown, and got a job at Cardiff Electric.

Gordon now has a second chance of success, but Joe is a fierce boss, and his vision of their new PC seems unattainable. Gordon must successfully solve the technical problems of the new machine. He begins a difficult working relationship with the disobedient female programmer Cameron Howe. Among other things, Gordon has a new commitment to Donna - family life and two little girls (Joanie and Haley).

Cameron Howe

Cameron, besides being my favorite character, is a great programmer who drops out of college and jeopardizes her future by joining a fraudulent PC project for Joe Macmillan. This 22-year-old programmer is a shock to the conservative, old Guard Cardiff Electric system, but she also represents what is the future in the world of computing. At the same time, it “slaps” the traditional technology of the 1980s, where men dominate.

She finds connectivity and comfort in mathematical confidence in coding, but at the same time she seeks to create chaos wherever she is. She sleeps in the office, picks up items from other people's tables, listens to punk music at full volume, etc.

Donna Clark

Donna is Gordon's wife and former partner engineer. Donna grew up in a family with "new money" in Dallas, and her parents are entrepreneurs who founded a company to produce high-quality gadgets called "Razor's Edge". Her father works with Nintendo. Donna graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with her husband Gordon. After that, she became a computer engineer.

She has resigned herself to being estranged from her husband since their failed Symphonic project, but she is also afraid that the new Cardiff Electric project will end her marriage. Despite this, she is trying to support Gordon in the hope that this will bring him back to life.

Minor Characters

John Bosworth

John is an old-school businessman who turned Cardiff Electric into a regional “power," which took him 22 years of life. As Senior Vice President, he directs Cardiff Electric's day-to-day operations and manages all of the company's finances. After Joe forces the company to participate in the race, Bosworth is forced to monitor what is happening and he is scared.

Despite his attitude to Joe, Bosworth is a responsible person who knows that he still has an important role to play in the future of the company, and he will not leave his place humbly.

Joanie & Haley Clark

Joanie

Joanie always loved to play with Cameron. This left its mark and she became a rebel who wants to turn the world around. Joanie is closer with her mother, because she considers her father a traitor who abandoned them.

Haley

Haley is a true "daddy's daughter." She is younger than her sister, but smarter than she and already at school she went to work with her father and became not just a “cog in the system” (contrary to Gordon’s ideas), but she was able to give very practical advice to the whole team and helped to get the company out of the crisis.

About the series

In this block, I would like to tell my opinion about some moments of the series.

I am infinitely glad that the series turned out exactly the way it is. The authors had the opportunity to make a historically valid picture or to escape from the reality of facts to some invented characters and not tie them to reality. However, they found some balance.

First, they introduced historical characters, but as a third-party reference. Like, everyone already knows Jobs and that he released the Mac in 1984. All characters discuss the output of this device and work with Apple as competitors in a real exhibition (the name has been changed from CES).

Secondly, the authors introduced reliability in technical aspects (or at least approached it). To tell about historical authenticity in the IT industry, so that it does not get boring - the top of talent. This still needed to be achieved. Now I'll show you an example of two hacks.

Hacking the operating system (first episode of the first season)

Hacking a network of devices (ninth episode of the second season)

Thirdly, they talk about philosophy in IT, about the tasks of IT, about our future from the prism of the past. Again, examples.

What is security? (eighth episode of the third season)

What is the Internet"? (tenth episode of the third season)

Soundtrack

Without spreading a long demagogy, I will say one thing - the soundtrack is beautiful!

Summary

Surveying this beautiful series was extremely difficult. It is impossible to convey the plot and tell something coherent after watching Formula 1 races. Emotions and impressions remain, but the story turns out to be completely not detailed.

Definitely, I can recommend this series to everyone who would like to know how the IT industry from the “garage in America” has reached one of the most popular and highly paid industries. The series will tell and show you not only the story in a naked form, but also the fate of people. This is a story about engineer Gordon Clark, who worked with hardware and considered programming nonsense, until he understood how much it needed and began to learn programming languages himself. The story of Joe Macmillan, who sought to climb the mountain of the career ladder and create the future, and this future so quickly "flew up" that he just did not have time to do what he wanted and changed course every time. This is a story about Cameron Howe, who fought to the last for her brainchild (she had a lot of them). She tried to create a program that everyone would needbut it was always so far from her idea to real execution. The story of John Bosworth, who tried with all his might not to lose his track, but could not keep up with the young and ambitious progres from The Riot. This is a story about you and me. About the life of our ancestors and about their fate. The story of an ever-accelerating aircraft called "IT". The story of young and smart engineers who break into the industry and redraw it in their own way.

A bit personal

Not so long ago. A couple of years ago. I talked to a person who was not in the IT sector. He is a surveyor engineer. He considered everything computer foreign and did not understand "what is happening there so that could be so much in demand." When I tried to explain what was “so,” I couldn’t get an understanding of my interlocutor. “Well, why exactly IT? Many areas must develop in order not to stop. What is so special about IT. ” When I despaired of trying to explain this, I was advised to watch the Halt and Catch Fire series. My interlocutor watched the series from beginning to end and in the evening after watching the last series, he called me. In the receiver I heard the first phrase: “Hmm. Here are now I understand what you mean. "

Acknowledgments

Once again, I would like to thank all of you for your support, help, and for moving along this path through the universes of all the key films and series in the IT world all together. From your comments, I learned a lot of new and interesting films that I’ll definitely watch (some of them have already been watched). Together we made a contribution to the treasury of all geek movie fans, and we are not few :)

Without your support, this would not have happened. Thank you for that!

I really do not want to stop and plan to make a selection of 60+ games about us and you. If you find this interesting, just continue to stay with me and also actively participate in polls, comments, and article ratings. Together we can handle it!

I’ll leave the links to the previous articles below, and I invite you to the survey.

Halt and Catch Fire - a team that deserves an adaptation