S01.E09: Up Helly Aa

[larapu2000]

In any case, how could some unknown team- in the same city, presumably- secretly mimic the Giant down to the nearly exact casing without word getting out, such as by any of various suppliers letting slip the similarity of orders?

 

Was it common during this period to not have exclusivity on new technology or components?  I sell pudding and cheese sauce and WE have exclusivity for our customers on particular formulas, so I can't imagine something that's worth such a valuable amount in IP $ isn't going to have some contractual obligation surrounding it.  Unless the Cardiff people are just idiots.  Which, not gonna lie, I could buy.

[dubbel zout]

Joe is shown time and time again to be deeply insecure about his own stunted creativity. Joe fears that all he is, is an empty suit.

Exactly. He's been told more than once that he'll never create anything.

[Yolapukka]

 

Cameron is supposed to be more innovative than everyone at Xerox Parc combined

 

I don't think that has been part of the concept behind her character or has been stated or implied within anything we've seen, either in the series or the scenes with the Xerox PARC people. Those were supposed to be her peers in terms of ability, age and outlook. She may belong in that group but there was nothing that indicated she'd be undeniably the best in that setting.  We were supposed to see the possibility that she could move on from Cardiff to work amongst people who were on the same page as her and potentially do much better in terms of exploiting and developing her abilities. Mainly we were supposed to see Joe's perspective on her when he was confronted in an uncomfortable way with the gap in their ages and potential, with the result that he had to consider the idea that their involvement could hold her back.

Edited August 2, 2014 by yuggapukka

[annlaw78]

 

I don't need to like any characters or 'root' for any in order to like a show. As long as I'm not bored by them and their realistic, then I'm fine. Honestly, most people irl aren't that likeable either.

I agree.  That said, I do like Joe and the Gordon-of-the-last-two-eps, and do want them and the project to succeed.  If they could make Cameron less a Manic Pixie Punk Techie Dream Girl and more an actual character with an ounce of pragmatism and maturity, I could get behind her, too.  Gordon and Joe were right, and Joe's pitch was fantastic and exactly on point with what the project set out to be: a faster, cheaper, IBM clone, designed to run IBM-compatible software and OS, with a handle added in later.   

 

If anything, I thought comparing the Macintosh to Cameron's OS just showed how lame the "talking OS" was.  It doesn't matter if you warm-and-fuzzy up the  prompts, Cameron's OS still required the user to tell the machine what to do ("Run Wordstar").  I had a Macintosh as a kid, and what I recall about it was not that it talked (yes, the happy computer face was cute), but that it allowed me to navigate the screen and click on what I wanted to do, and it magically happened.  I no longer had to communicate with the machine -- the machine was an extension of me, the mouse was an appendage.  That's where Cameron's OS went astray, I think.  People don't really want to have conversations with their computers, not in the way Cameron was conceiving of it.  To be able to boot up the computer and interface with other users, or interact with games -- that's not about the OS.  

 

 

The thing that bugs me about Hunt and neighbor stealing the Giant idea is that there was no real build up to that.  We saw one scene early on when Hunt learned Donna suggested the dual sided motherboard, but there was no indication that Hunt was even thinking about leaving TI and doing his own PC at that time.  There was nothing shown of Hunt perhaps trying to convince TI to try the same idea and failing, or Hunt getting more info out of Donna.  There was nothing shown of any suspicious conduct by the neighbor.  It just totally came out of nowhere that suddenly from a tidbit of a motherboard/compact PC (did Donna even say portable or mobile PC?) they suddenly had a virtual replica of the Giant.

The entire specs for the Giant were faxed to Donna at the hotel in Lubbock, and that was mistakenly delivered to Hunt.  I think we're to assume he photocopied it before returning it to Donna.  So it wasn't just the few little things she let slip about the motherboard, etc. that Hunt had to go off of.  He essentially had the blueprints for the entire thing, at least the important hardware bits.  Neighbor Brian (?) could fill in the gaps.  It wouldn't surprise me if Joe Sr. were bankrolling or somehow involved in the Slingshot, and gave the IBM BIOS to them to start from.   Or, as others have said, Cardiff has been hemorrhaging employees for months (including coders who had access to Cameron's BIOS).  

Edited August 3, 2014 by annlaw78

[hincandenza]

The entire specs for the Giant were faxed to Donna at the hotel in Lubbock, and that was mistakenly delivered to Hunt.  I think we're to assume he photocopied it before returning it to Donna.  So it wasn't just the few little things she let slip about the motherboard, etc. that Hunt had to go off of.  He essentially had the blueprints for the entire thing, at least the important hardware bits.  Neighbor Brian (?) could fill in the gaps.  It wouldn't surprise me if Joe Sr. were bankrolling or somehow involved in the Slingshot, and gave the IBM BIOS to them to start from.   Or, as others have said, Cardiff has been hemorrhaging employees for months (including coders who had access to Cameron's BIOS).  

 

Huh, I didn't recall that, but now that you mention it, it sounds familiar.  Good catch- that does explain a fair amount, although even with full specs, how quickly could they assemble the PC *and* some kind of basic OS, since by the time the Cardiff team had full hw specs to fax, there'd be very little time to assemble even a half-functional prototype?  That's why I'm still thinking the Slingshot is mostly vaporware... drum up enough interest, get orders in lieu of the Giant, and by delivery date you can hammer out the details- or even pay Cardiff as Hunt offered to shortcut it, or just snag up the hemorrhaged employees as you mention.

 

Or perhaps season 2 (ha, ha, surely I jest!) would focus on their growing pains, going from a rogue PC division into a successful clone company, and all the hassles and litigation that entails- which is very much a part of Silicon Valley history, after all.

[annlaw78]

 

Huh, I didn't recall that, but now that you mention it, it sounds familiar.  Good catch- that does explain a fair amount, although even with full specs, how quickly could they assemble the PC *and* some kind of basic OS, since by the time the Cardiff team had full hw specs to fax, there'd be very little time to assemble even a half-functional prototype?  That's why I'm still thinking the Slingshot is mostly vaporware... drum up enough interest, get orders in lieu of the Giant, and by delivery date you can hammer out the details- or even pay Cardiff as Hunt offered to shortcut it, or just snag up the hemorrhaged employees as you mention.

Yeah, Gordon, in a fit of pissy-ness, faxed the plans for the Giant to Donna at the hotel, whinging about Joe promoting style over substance, etc.  The Hunt-Donna kiss happened when Hunt was delivering the fax to Donna's room after dinner.  

 

Agree, it's pretty hokey that the Slingshot could get up and running in a matter of weeks or months since Donna's trip to Lubbock, unless Hunt has been a sleeper agent for Slingshot while working for TI.  

[Jamoche]

... with the Xerox PARC people. Those were supposed to be her peers in terms of ability, age and outlook. She may belong in that group but there was nothing that indicated she'd be undeniably the best in that setting.  We were supposed to see the possibility that she could move on from Cardiff to work amongst people who were on the same page as her and potentially do much better in terms of exploiting and developing her abilities. 

See, that's the problem. I have tried to watch this show and always bounce off Cameron, because I was a female computer whiz kid in DFW in the 80s, and my first Silicon Valley job was at the Parc spinoff. She just does not strike me as being my peer.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Jamoche

[DittyDotDot]

Yeah, Gordon, in a fit of pissy-ness, faxed the plans for the Giant to Donna at the hotel, whinging about Joe promoting style over substance, etc.  The Hunt-Donna kiss happened when Hunt was delivering the fax to Donna's room after dinner.  

 

Agree, it's pretty hokey that the Slingshot could get up and running in a matter of weeks or months since Donna's trip to Lubbock, unless Hunt has been a sleeper agent for Slingshot while working for TI.  

 

I don't think it's been just a matter of weeks. I think the fax was a couple of weeks, but I think Hunt's been working on this probably from the first moment we first meet him. I've been playing all back in my head now and I think Hunt started working on the idea as soon as he saw that article. I'm assuming crazy neighbor guy went in for a job interview at TI and somehow Hunt and neighbor got talking and hatched this plan. The first time we see Hunt, it sounds like he's unhappy with his position at TI and wanting something else. Now, I'm seeing all the conversations with Donna and Hunt in a totally new light. I love this reveal. I love to be surprised by a show and then that surprise to actually make sense too--what a novelty on TV these days.

 

BTW, as I recall, the Mac did talk, but mostly just a few programed phrases and could also speak the messages that would pop up from time to time. I hated it, but my use of them would've been later, so maybe the first Mac didn't have this function? I thought it was perfect that Joe would latch on to the one thing that was actually not all that useful, though. Of course he would see the "magic" and think it was substance.

 

Very fine episode, IMO.

[Jamoche]

BTW, as I recall, the Mac did talk, but mostly just a few programed phrases and could also speak the messages that would pop up from time to time. 

 

It had built-in text-to-speech - it could read anything you threw at it, making a pretty good guess at pronunciation (English is notoriously bad about that). In 1982 there was an Apple ][ program that sounded halfway decent if you gave it the right phonetic information, and it had some pre-programmed common words as well. Doing it right really needed more processing power than computers had at the time.

[DittyDotDot]

Thanks Jamoche, I thought I remembered that. And thanks for the link because I also remember the early speech recognition program. I had a professor in college with a heavy southern accent who was forever cussing at his computer because it never understood what he wanted it to do. So funny to think of now.