green

I didn't say Word would be the one and only word processing program.. Quite the contrary, having a PC platform opened up competition among software companies because it was now economically viable to develop software because their was a larger market to sell it too. Word Perfect is a perfect example. It was more popular then Word for several years. Thus competition and innovation on the PC side of the aisle. Meanwhile Apple having a Word version of it's own was still way down the line in the early 80's. The reason Apple finally allowed software NOT it's own on it's platform was because of the major competition PCs had become in the personal consumer market. Originally IBM had real no idea what to do with a PC outside the office environment so the opening up of their platform to tons of companies/people who did know what to do with it forced Apple's hand. Nothing else would have since there was zero love lost between Jobs and Gates back in the day. The fact you had to pass around ASCII documents in the 80's just proves further the importance of the PC revolution. That revolution began in the 80's but flowered in the 90's. Time factor is a necessity in this. And the 90's is when non techies (98% of us) could first start using home computers with some degree of mastery. You have to get through the era of the crappy techno-babble stuff and mind numbing manuals that no one outside of the techie outliers of society could possibly understand before a new device can truly catch on.

Big Ben would probably be a prime target. But just as much or even more so I'd think would be both Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral (the latter of which Hitler failed to take down back in the day). Also the Tower of London (or is that also the Big Ben/Houses of Parliament area too?). Throw in Number 10 Downing Street and the occupant thereof for extra credit.

The people who found main dude smarmy are right according to a review I read. Reviewer said the writers basically took the two Apple Steves and inserted their personalities into the PC clone story. Lazy writers, heh. But yeah there was no one in the industry more smarmy then Jobs. He sold himself and Apple as the young, hip, cool, new age unicorns and rainbows computer company. Meanwhile he actually threatened to cut off child support to his own daughter if his ex didn't sign legal documents allowing him to use his daughter's name and image for his newest computer at the time -- the Lisa. (Complete with sweetness and light ad campaign for same). Think that was right before/after Apple II wasn't it? According to several early women employees on an early PBS documentary about those years, they were "encouraged" to "mingle" with the men of the company or they would be fired. Steve Jobs also was quoted on that documentary bragging about destroying his employees psychologically so he could re-build them in his imagine. He wasn't going to allow them stock in the early company either but the good Steve -- Steve W -- stepped in and insisted and as a result many an early employee made mucho money. Steve W was the quiet, geek genius complete with beard and glasses so the two physical types match up a lot with these two fictional ones. So I wonder in this fictional, transposed to Apple's competitor the PC, if it's bearded geek genius has a stand up moment to smarmy guy down the line too. On the whole though Steve W just did his geek stuff but he did stand up that one time and it was him, not Jobs or Apple (though Jobs claimed both), that threw the free rock concert that helped put Apple on the mainstream map. Jobs got away for years and even after his death still for many with a totally 180 degree version of himself as his public persona. I wonder if the main guy turns into the complete hypocrite Jobs was. Probably not since he has to be likeable enough to make people tune in but it will be interesting if they use some of this type of material on Jobs for smarmy guy in this series. He obviously has inspireded them enough t ocreate this whole character based on him. Ironic it is for his arch enemy, the PC.

renatae wrote above: You do NOT want diversification, you want multiple companies getting to build computers for the SAME platform so the Word document you wrote can be read by your boss at work and your neighbor across the street. That couldn't happen 99% of the time before this moment. For one thing neither you nor your neighbor could probably afford your own home computer until this hardware competition drove prices into the ditch. And the other is that if your neighbor was a geek with an outlier brand like Sun he could never ever read a document produced on a IBM computer and vice versa. Two FEW hardware (computer) options (companies). Too many different operating systems turning computer crosstalk into the tower of babble. Cloning the PC by Compaq reversed tat. it meant anyone could then reverse engineer it too and multiple companies sprang up building there own PC hardware but using the same operating IBM style computers could use. To wit DOS (and later Windows). The reason for this is that Bill Gates never sold the operating system to IBM. He leased it to them retaining full ownership for himself and they could think of no reason to object because they couldn't see the PC clone revolution coming. So hardware competition drives prices way down so most people can now own a computer AND a computer that can talk to their neighbor's computer because Gates happily leased his OS (DOS, later Windows) to anyone waving money in his face Anyway having the SAME operating system -- an operating system is the code that allows the hardware electronics to "use" (process) software from Word to the PC version of Angry Birds -- meant software that was designed for IBM could be used now on ALL the PC clones out there. Until then you had to buy programs specific to a hardware platform since Word wouldn't run on any other hardware but the IBM platform for example. And software was really really expensive then because of that. That made early personal computers more a novelty for the rich and a arcane hobby for geeks who often built computers out of "build it yourself" kits. But after the PC clone EVERYTHING changed forever and you could actually use computers for all kinds of stuff and share via floppies which lead to finding a better way to share then hand carrying disks around which jump started the internet.

And it is. This is a techie show. And there is nothing more nostalgic about the techie 80's then 64K RAM chips.

Congrats. What do you do? Well you could tune in next season and see what your relatives are up to? Also looks like Aslaug finally has a fan on these forums, hah. And don't forget to be first on these boards to start the Ivar the Boneless Fan Club.

Yeah I think you added an extra zero in making it 640K RAM. Guess at age 3 your math was still a little shaky. :-) The Commordore 64, super popular big during the 80's decade, was 64K thus it's name. Wikipedia: (Commodore 64) "Volume production started in early 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US $595 (equivalent to $1,500 in 2014). Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes (65,536 bytes) of RAM, and had favorable sound and graphical specifications when compared to contemporary systems such as the Apple II. While the Apple cost circa US$1200, it was sold as a complete system with disk drive and dedicated monitor—the 64's $595 price included only the system unit. The Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer was initially priced at $399, but had only 4kB RAM and could not match the 64's graphics and sound abilities." Ironically though the Commodore 64 didn't come with a monitor it did come with an adapter cord to use a TV as it's screen. It only took a quarter of a century for the return of computers interfacing directly with TVs in a big way. It wasn't as good as buying the Commodore monitor since it converted digital to analog but hey all things new were once old. And it was good enough when cyan was still the king of computer colors. You also see how expensive Apples were compared to other options back in the day. And IBMs had no function in a home being built for business applications in mind period and were just as expensive if not more so. Commodores and Radio Shack's (that was what Tandy means) Trash 80 didn't have compatible operating systems with each other or Sun or Atari or Apple or IBM. You can start to see how making a cheap IBM clone that can unite all personal computers outside of Apple (Apples never used DOS/Windows OS obviously thus can't run the same software) was a huge huge deal. Personal computing was stymied by the lack of one computer being able to talk with another. This broke everything wide open. Also made a multi-billionaire out of Bill Gates who happily leased his DOS/Windows OS platform to any and all PC clone makers.

To quote wikipedia: "The series is set in the early 1980s and depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution." So no Cardiff was not a real company and this is a fictional "riff" off factional happenings with fictional characters. Which is too bad because the factual happening are interesting enough in their own right. The first reverse engineering of IBM's PC to both work and stand up legally was by Compaq. To quote a short wikipedia excerpt again: "Compaq Computer Corporation was a company founded in 1982, that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers, being the first company to legally reverse-engineer the IBM Personal Computer. It rose to become the largest supplier of PC systems during the 1990s before being overtaken by Dell in 2001. .... "Compaq was founded in February 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, three senior managers from semiconductor manufacturer Texas Instruments. The three of them had left due to lack of faith and loss of confidence in TI's management, and initially considered but ultimately decided against starting a chain of Mexican restaurants. Each invested $1,000 to form the company ..." I would so have liked the almost Mexican restaurant chain storyline instead of the soap opera stuff in this version. Also note the lack of women in the real version. In 1982 there were almost no women in the computer industry and according to a recent report I saw that aired on the PBS Newshour where Google was the first tech company ever to release gender stats a week or so ago, it remains a very young, largely white though somewhat Asian as well male bastion. The women and Afro-Americans and Hispanics in the demographics are way lower then other industries by far. It is hard to imagine a hot shot young engineer being a female back then let alone a senior software developer at Texas Instruments. But drama works better with two genders I guess. But the "culture" of women getting into this field was far far worse then and it is still poor now. The young geek laden upstart companies aren't entirely to blame since women then were still being raised to assume math and technology was a "man's world." So neither the men nor the women thought outside the box much unfortunately. A person I know who was at a small but rather good two year technology college back then that offered computer and electronics technology associate degrees totally transferable to a four year program told me that in the early 80's they had classes of appox 70 students with a lone token female in each class topping off at 3 females in a mid-80's class. And they said they did try to encourage/recruit females but none were applying back then.

What a fun villain Simcoe has become. To get his commanding officer to basically do/think the way he wants him to he feeds a poison apple to Bucephalus 2.0. (Modest of the commander to name his horse after Alexander the Great's I always thought, hah). Simcoe really really enjoys his work. Looks like the series ends more then the season ends by the previews. Yeah there is the first allusion to Benedict Arnold but it is already post-Saratoga where Arnold got his horse shot out from under him like Caleb and Blue Coat Dude were discussing. The winter is long over and summer is here and time is whizzing by quickly. Since they don't seem to want to tell the real story of the spy ring I'm fine with a good old fashioned bloodbath ending next week and the show being cancelled. Cause if Simcoe gets offed in this upcoming episode it would not be fun anymore. Really hating the main character Abe at this point. Not only does he treat his wife like crap but he never bothers to hang out with his son either. He makes them both into his ball and chain whilst constantly feeling sorry for himself for no real reason. And now it's all about screwing the "hot chick" while pretending to himself he is some wonderful noble type. Wish Simcoe had shot him at the dual and they had turned the series into "The Mad and Merry Adventures of Simcoe" instead.

I don't think the show is presenting that part I bolded clear enough for sure. What backward engineering IBM's PC did was let the rest of us 99%ers own computers finally. The IBM and Apple monopoly of business users and rich guys was broken wide open when Compaq put out the first PC clone and tons of other companies rushed in to jump aboard and all the competition drove down prices radically. And thanks to Bill Gates retaining control of the OS he basically "rented" to IBM, all the tons of those PC clone machines that followed got to use the same OS system (old DOS and later Windows) which allowed all the programs from word processing programs to games to run on ALL the various clone PCs which was totally revolutionary. Suddenly there was a universal platform and suddenly the whole world could afford these computers that could basically talk to each other now (via floppy disks of course) no matter their brand name. Innovation flourished and the ground was fertile for a better way to share information between all these compatible computers which set the stage for the internet. These three people ushered in the true computer age which, up until that time, had been only for corporations and rich geeks. The endless shows about Apple stealing Xerox's stuff and starting the personal computer era was all prelude to this breakout moment when suddenly the "people" got put into the "personal" computer age thanks to breaking the monopoly stranglehold IBM and Apple had over everyone. And this part of the story has always been totally undertold when it is probably the most pivotal moment of the computer age. I just don't thing the exposition and set-up explained it or set it up very well. The program assumes everyone is up to speed on the whole PC clone story and how it came about and why it was so important and how it lead to everything else and nothing could be further from the truth.

Tom Baker. That was # 4 right? Liked Patrick Troughton too (#2).

Too bad a gem of a show is ending and this genius of a guy got co-opted into taking over a show that just promotes this or that ego tripping performer's whatever. I won't be watching ever. To me the whole Johnny Carson style crap is just that. Crap. Fluff. Late night shows conjure up "stale" more then any other word. Endless visions of boring self-promoters from the "entertainment" industry being patted on their endless backs. Sorry, I like Stephen's talents but hate them being wasted here. Won't watch even one of his new shows. Not out of anger towards him but out of the fact that I hate hate hate HATE all late night talk shows pereiod. I'll miss The Colbert Report. That and The Daily Show have been the only true humor on TV. Unique both and they have changed people's lives, promoted activism especially among the younger generation that haven't know or experienced mass movements and such in their lifetime and this is basically all they have as a springboard into that world. Sometimes what you do matters. Sometimes a "promotion" is actually a demotion in what is really important in life. And that's what I see in going from an advocate of anything from the way vets are treated to the way the NSA violates our freedoms to the corruption in politics to now showcasing Flip Famous' "heee-larious" new flick about farting and such like ilk.

Best season in a long time. Great to finally see a parent/kid team win and an older winner too. I've seen every episode from every season from the very beginning. I don't think any season can ever again equal Seasons 2, 3 and 5 (tie), and 1 (my personal favorites order). But on the latter, non-classic seasons this was one of the best. Good work, TAR production guys. I really enjoyed it. Except for all the artificial U-Turn nonsense junk and lack of FF on every leg except the last one which basically took the whole show down a notch starting with season 6 (season 5's cast overcame the big change that started that season cause... well ... the cast was pretty damn awesome). Interesting that the old TAR classic "curse of the hometown finishing line" popped up in this episode too. Hurt to see it happen with Frank & Margarita and was hilarious to see it happen with Wil and was down right heart-warming to see it with that annoying big brother team.

No they do not keep them flying all the time. They are only flown with a specific target in mind or when supporting troops on the ground in an active combat zone. Period. 24 bears as much resemblance to reality as My Mother The Car. Perhaps less.

I know why for myself. The first season was more subtle. You could "settle in" and watch an interesting progression as the characters traveled along their fated paths to their destinies. There was time to explore with texture and depth and black humor. The town was still more sinister "quirky" and not totally blood-soaked bizarroworld as yet. Season 1 gratefully followed Hitchcock's genius in "less is more" on the "graphic" parts and relied more on the not seen to produce the scary tension stuff. Hitchcock knew that the scary is 90% in our own mind and it's fear of what "might" happen and not in fake blood poured over actors. Also the endless pot stuff was more an annoyance in Season 1 than an over the top, boring "action" subplot that threatens to take over all the better parts of the series. There was too much from the beginning but at least it didn't hog the screen as totally has it did in Season 2. And less deaths. I want Norman going "psycho" to be the big deal payoff in the end. Not just one more of so many weird killers living in the town already. In Season 2 if you haven't killed a few people already in weird and bloody ways you are a real nobody in this place. I keep hearing they were inspired by Twin Peaks but Twin Peaks jumped the shark and destroyed itself quickly. Hope they remember that and rein this stuff in. I guess I think Season 2 lost a lot of the spooky Hitchcock-like approach of the first season and went off into the typical Hollywood shoot-em-up, body counts boring stuff. Which caused the show to lose it's unique pov that made it must viewing. It still has the actors playing Norma, Norman and even the Sheriff and their great build-up of their characters still. But the scripts aren't doing them the same service they did a season ago in my opinion. And, since it can't be said enough, too much whacky week stuff. Just get a fake prescription from almost any doctor these days or drive over to Colorado (and soon, just up to Washington) and stop with shooting people over pot.

If it wasn't for the actor's delivery of Simcoe's one line, "My turn" said with such understated glee at the duel, this episode would get an F- from me. Because of that I gave it a D. But then he didn't shoot Abe so it went back down to F territory again. I'm also tired of the wife Mary being written negatively. She did what she was suppose to do back in the day. Married who everyone wanted her to marry. Had a kid. Loved her husband. Was FAITHFUL to Long Island's version of Hamlet all this time while he was sending her thought waves of "you are such a drag, wish I had the hot chick at the tavern who is married to someone else instead". Glad she ratted out Hamlet ... ah Abe ... to Tory Dad. Abe and Tory Dad are made for each other. Both selfish, stubborn idiots. Maybe they should go off together and live miserably ever after.

I think the show itself could improve things by making the opening titles a little more interesting. Don't know what the heck that song is at the beginning but it is boring and doesn't have much to do with anything. Hate the graphics too. But part of my reaction is from the direct opposite on the other non-premium (aka I can afford to watch this channel) cable historic drama this season in Vikings that has one of the most awesome titles graphics and music in a TV series ever. It helped hook me in BIG time. (Also I can't get the notes out of my head still and the season's over). Turn's attempt at "clever" titles and that horrid music makes me want to go channel surfing elsewhere instead.

It was a really boring Thursday without Vikings out pillaging tonight. When do we get to Season 3. "Are we there yet, Ragnar. Are we there yet?"

That's what I thought too. Finally a payoff moment with Hessians going down and their sauerkraut scattering all over. But no. Stupid bluecoat falls into a foot of water and Caleb stays behinds to warm him up for a couple of day whilst probably roasting marshmallows since he has nothing else to do while history is being made just up the road. Though I must say a history comedy series where the time traveling main characters keep missing all the important events of world history each episode because of stupid stuff like this might be pretty funny.

Yeah it is annoying that the one group of people I can identify with are the ones getting shot for no reason by the crazy so-called "hero". Guess the guy doesn't understand the lesson of ends and means much. Neither did Stalin who openly scoffed at the concept. Don't like the dude and the fact he will "save the world" at the end of the series. I really don't understand much of what is going on since it makes totally no sense. I mean everyone knows all US military drones can be (and usually are) controlled within the US itself and I thought that was where the drone pilots were until they were suddenly driving one of them to the US embassy in London. There is no need to lease a base in the UK for the hardware either since the US can launch drones from the base they already have in Germany though the Germans would kick them out after the first drone walkabout in Europe. But then so would the Brits. The US can also launch them from navy ships. England makes no sense in this plot at all. And who knew the CIA has a major base in the UK where it can run around loose and do whatever it wants and both MI5 and MI6 are fine with all that. No need to take prisoners to Egypt anymore when England is such a handy place to torture them instead. Thought I'd give this a try because of the real time thing but it annoys me no end. I'm out. Wake me when they do a show with a bunch of idealistic hactivists who are the good guys and who save the world every week. I'm tired of secret agent establishment types and rogues from same running around messing with the world in every other show. Give me a new type of hero.

Ziva by a country mile. I named a warrior after her in a RPG online game even. Got to add a Lagertha one to pair up with her now. Those two could take down small nation states together. Ziva was kick ass and took no prisoners and she and Tony could verbally spar and keep me laughing half the episode. They were great together. Typical good workplace relationship between two sharp and funny people. Kate was just there but pretty okay I guess. Didn't bother me, didn't do anything for me. The new one is annoying though I like that she sits cross-legged on the floor. Her one good attribute. But the show seems dull now with her and not Ziva on the scene. May not watch next season unless Ziva comes back for a guest appearance.

Yeah I realize why I liked this episode the best now. Less of boring Abe and his endless soap opera (yawn) relationships and more history stuff. So far I find the British more interesting with Simcoe and Robert Rogers and even Andre. And now it looks like Masai warrior guy will be one of Rogers' Rangers too. Brits are scoring all the interesting people so far. Tallmadge is okay but just there for me and Washington is a two dimensional cutout without faults so far. Caleb has some real possibilities but they don't use him much in the show. More Caleb and less Abe and his many uninteresting loves and family members both alive and dead. And I don't care how people eat or what is viewed as "proper" so just eat, drink and stab merry according to how you feel. Though you might try to keep the neck stabbing a bit down since it is such a mess to clean up afterwards.

This was the first episode I'd actually grade above average. It's been a bit of a snooze-fest up until now. Maybe I'll stick around and see if it remains at this level or falls back down into the literal cabbage patch. (Tip of the cap to Simcoe for making neck stabbing an entertaining moment. Floki might like this guy).

Just have Oregon legalize pot and move on from that endless boring sub-plot.

Thank goodness they have no intent to do that. I think the reason is it would make no sense whatsoever to abandon the Ragnar/Rollo lines for some group of generic Vikings elsewhere. Ragnar still has adventures in him and after him his real life historic sons have many adventures to do. One of Rollo's descendents (if they are basing this Rollo on the other one and IF he ever gets around to making some offspring) is extremely famous a few centuries down the line. I think they will do that with Rollo (making him the famous one) since we are making our first moves kind of into into his future turf in Season 3. I think the intent all along is to stick to the same family throughout and go as far as they can with them until the show gets cancelled. Following a family through the generations is far more satisfying then ditching them and going off with a bunch of strangers. They don't do it in novels and I don't think they ever do it on TV either. They may add some characters to the cast slowly. Like we already met Erlunder and now that he basically has nothing else to do with his life and no family left, I'd like to see Erlunder go to England to settle and follow what becomes of the early Viking settlement there as a minor cut-away sub-plot. But in the main I for one am looking forward to Ragnar raising his brood by Aslaug of future warriors. And yeah I can't imagine fans putting up with a simple abandonment of Ragnar or the 4 or 5 other main characters. Why after the show worked so hard to make us care about the fortunes of this family? Why after makign a show about them would they want to abandon their show? Especially since there is absolutely no reason to do so. There is tons of material ahead for this family to live yet. It would be committing TV series suicide and for no reason whatsoever then to kill yourself.