S01.E10: 1984

[shelwood]

To all those questioning the use of "killer app", as an Old, I can vouch that this term started being bandied about around 1980 about Visi-Calc, then really entered the lexicon in early 1983 when Lotus 1-2-3 came out. And, yes, we really did shorten application to app way back in those olden days. So someone using the term in late '83/early '84 was not an anachronism. However, Joe saying he taped that football game "on VHS" was not something someone would have said, even back then, despite the format war.

I did enjoy the show overall, but, really, mostly just Cam and Donna. If there is any chance it comes back for a second season, I'd be fine if it was entirely about them and their new company.

[Kel Varnsen]

So the dissolution of all of that in this episode made me really sad. Bosworth risked everything for this (and I missed him in this episode, and want to say how amazing I thought Toby Huss was in the show), and I thought the empty/downer moment for Gordon was silly (he'll think of something to do next or someone else will -- or what about that OS?). And Joe wandering off into the desert to, I guess, find his mother, just felt beyond bizarre to me. Although we did see signs that Joe had evolved into a reasonable emotional human being in the end -- he was honest with Cam about his feelings for her, and fairly kind and courteous to the old man at the service station in the desert.

I wish we could have gotten some kind of an update on Bos. I mean it has been months from the time of his arrest to the time they ship the computers. I would assume he is no serving time in a federal prison for hacking the bank. Because even if old man Cardiff is happy with the results, I am not sure he could make those charges go away. Hopefully his crime was the kind of thing where the law hadn't caught up to technology and he wasn't looking at a long time in prison.

 

As far as Gordon and the "whats next", computers back then were pretty basic. What's next would be making the Giant version 2 faster, lighter and cheaper. 

 

That said I did like how Gordon and Donna just got over their post-comdex marriage issues because they are married adults and they just got over it. Because that is totally what happens in real life. Also stoned Donna was hilarious. 

 

As far as Joe goes I really don't know what his problem was. The burning the computers and running away I guess made some sense, but it was kind of stupid. Not sure if it was more because he was in love with Cameron or because he didn't really care for the giant once it finally got made. 

 

Also what was the point of the car jacking? Was it just to have Donna reflect some more on her life? And I wasn't sure did the car jackers take her ring?

[DrSpaceman]

The car jacking is just symbolic of the fact that the money, release of the computer and new look for Gordon doesn't mean that all their trouble are over personally or profesionally

 

Still not sure Gordon and Donna are over their marriage issues.  Things are better for a brief time, but now that Gordon appers to be reverting back to his slumping boredom, not sure where it will go. 

 

I think the thing that bugs me about this ending is the obvious direction to go, rather than what they did, was to have at least Joe and Gordon looking to the future and realizing that this release (yes, its a cliche) is not an end in any way but in fact is a beginning, a chance for them to maintain their spot in the market but improving what they did with a second generation computer and more software.  For two people who are supposed to be forward thinking and visionary, in their own ways, you would think this would be obvious.  The machine is state of the art but its clear there were things that could be  improved so they can make it better.  Instead they both into some sort of existensial crisis and wonder if now everything is all over?  That doesn't seem to make sense to me. 

 

At least Cam and Donna seem to realize this, even if they are going in a different direction with their work

Edited August 5, 2014 by DrSpaceman

[Boton]

Oh, this was so frustrating!  By the time Joe burned the truckload of Giants, Mr. Boton and I had sworn to not come back if there is a second season.  There's fictionalizing history, and then there's creating an alternate timeline so implausible that the viewer can't get immersed in it.

 

Yes, everyone got up the morning after the Super Bowl and spent as much time at the watercooler discussing the 1984 ad as the game (I presume -- I was in high school, and no one mentioned a thing about it).  Because 1984 was a great piece of advertising.  It didn't change the landscape of computing.  It didn't vault Apple into dominance.  It didn't inspire an immediate group of hipster rebel-wannabes who used Apple as their badge of coolness.  As I've mentioned in other episode threads, at this point Apple has at least 10 more years of being the education computer, and PCs have a decade or more of being the standard for business (i.e., making money).  

 

Joe needs to grow up, take whatever it was we took in the 80s before Prozac (lithium?), and really have a vision.  And the vision looks like this, Joe:  build a portable computer that is the fastest, smallest thing you can build at the moment (like the Giant).  Sell enough of it to make a huge profit.  Make the next version smaller and faster and with more bells and whistles when the next chip comes out (286).  Lather, rinse, repeat.  This business plan will work for the next 30 years and will ultimately lead to tablets and smart phones and Siri and everything else, but you have to step your way through it.  If you can't handle it, go stay in your observatory, where you will be neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs.

[Kel Varnsen]

Joe needs to grow up, take whatever it was we took in the 80s before Prozac (lithium?), and really have a vision.  And the vision looks like this, Joe:  build a portable computer that is the fastest, smallest thing you can build at the moment (like the Giant).  Sell enough of it to make a huge profit.  Make the next version smaller and faster and with more bells and whistles when the next chip comes out (286).  Lather, rinse, repeat.  This business plan will work for the next 30 years and will ultimately lead to tablets and smart phones and Siri and everything else, but you have to step your way through it.  If you can't handle it, go stay in your observatory, where you will be neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs.

That's what I really didn't get about Joe. I mean it seemed like he was trying to make the Giant all things for all people. But in reality if he had really tried it would have been nothing. I mean that whole line in the previous episode at Comdex where he was talking about how you can use the Giant at work all day, then bring it home and play games with the kids. I mean was there really that big a market in 1983 of people who had the means to be able to do that and actually wanted to do that? 

[dubbel zout]

Joe needs to grow up, take whatever it was we took in the 80s before Prozac (lithium?)

Valium, mostly.

[qtpye]

Joe's mother is dead. That is why he had the hissy fit with his father. He only learned of her real death after he believed in her false death or whatever it was for years.

 

 

There has been some speculation that the reclusive woman living in the Fiske Observatory is actually Joe's mother.  Maybe she faked her own death or Joe was lied to again.  However, since it is unlikely that there will be a second season, we will probably never know for sure.

[Jordan Baker]

This episode had a few choice moments. I loved Donna's evaluation/interview with the TI person. And I liked Donna and her cool buzz. All she needed were some tasty waves . . .

 

But I HATED it when Joe had those Giants catch fire. ARGH.

 

Gordon looks better with a beard.

 

I'd love to see how things work at Mutiny. That would be a reason for Season 2.

 

BTW, how is Cameron paying her employees? I saw her hand out a credit card for equipment, but what about payroll, taxes . . . stuff like that?

 

So many unanswered questions.

 

Here's another--who wrote the manual(s) that surely accompanied the Giant? (OK, dorky question, but in my former life I was a technical writer, and I know someone had to explain how to use the thing.)

[Kel Varnsen]

I'd love to see how things work at Mutiny. That would be a reason for Season 2.

 

BTW, how is Cameron paying her employees? I saw her hand out a credit card for equipment, but what about payroll, taxes . . . stuff like that?

 

 

She offered Donna equity in the company, so I would assume the coders got the same thing. I kind of had to laugh at how Cameron gave her big speech about no one being the boss and everyone being equal and then Donna walked in. I really wanted to be a line after that where Cameron said something like "by the way guys this is Donna, she is the new head of hardware development and the new operations manager".

[dubbel zout]

I kind of had to laugh at how Cameron gave her big speech about no one being the boss and everyone being equal and then Donna walked in.

I took Cameron's "there are no bosses here" to mean more that everyone's skills and contributions are equally valued, regardless of experience and position. Somewhat the opposite of Cardiff.

 

I think it's obvious Donna is going to be the grown-up at Mutiny. I don't think Cameron is so naive to think that she can have a company with no infrastructure whatsoever. If she is, she'll be disabused of that as soon as she has decide how to incorporate.

[Yolapukka]

 

I kind of had to laugh at how Cameron gave her big speech about no one being the boss and everyone being equal and then Donna walked in. I really wanted to be a line after that where Cameron said something like "by the way guys this is Donna, she is the new head of hardware development and the new operations manager".

 

It was kind of funny to me in that I'd been reading about "flat" management after hearing a radio interview on the subject and what kept coming up was opposite to Cameron's "warm and fuzzies", they can sometimes be fairly harsh places to work in terms of workplace politics because of a lack of grievance procedures, unless there are staff dedicated to HR. Despite what Cameron said about no bosses there is still a need for structure and usually at least one person who functions as a leader, even if they don't have a formal title as such. I hope Donna actually gets to work and doesn't have to waste time playing den mother.

[NutmegsDad]

ETA: Joe went to an observatory, not a conservatory.

 

So THAT'S what happened to Pluto. Joe, you sociopathic bastard!

 

Count me in on the side of "Nice enough ending if it doesn't get renewed". And nice pickup on "killer app" anachronism. NutmegsMom even thought that was wrong.

 

I do want my web epilog of 2014 Cameron (played by Denise Crosby) giving a lecture at the Computer History Museum with a functional Cardiff Giant, complete with CameronOS.

Edited August 5, 2014 by NutmegsDad

[NutmegsDad]

To all those questioning the use of "killer app", as an Old, I can vouch that this term started being bandied about around 1980 about Visi-Calc, then really entered the lexicon in early 1983 when Lotus 1-2-3 came out. And, yes, we really did shorten application to app way back in those olden days. So someone using the term in late '83/early '84 was not an anachronism. However, Joe saying he taped that football game "on VHS" was not something someone would have said, even back then, despite the format war.

 

 

 

I defer and thank you for clearing that up.

 

I'll also defer to "taping on VHS", unless Joe despised Betamax so much he made the distinction (and Joe's the type of asshole that would do it). BTW, even though we record on DVD, we still refer to "taping off the TV". :)

[scowl]

I think "killer app" is a retronym for those applications like VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 that actually sold computers back in the day. I don't remember anyone calling them at the time. I distinctly remember them being called "hits" because that was a record industry term and some programmers wanted to think they were the rock stars of the computer age.

 

More technical nit-picks... 2400 baud modems were not available at this time. Even 1200 baud modems were crazy expensive. I upgraded to 2400 baud in 1989 I think. I paid $300 for a 9600 baud modem in the early 90's!

 

The trick to these faster speeds was echo cancellation. Now if Cameron had mentioned echo cancellation (i.e. had the writers spent ten minutes on Wikipedia), that would have been great. But as usual, the show had her babble about something called "QAM" which still wouldn't have worked. It's utterly ridiculous that Cameron could have known that a system would have worked without doing any field testing (there are some crappy phone lines). Cameron talked like she was getting 9600 baud in her brain so of course it would work on a phone line. Duh! Men are so stupid!

 

Just as I was getting used to pretty Cameron inventing things in her brain, the season ends with Joe, this time, acting like a dangerous lunatic. I almost don't want another season of this show because I know Mutiny Software is going to be a huge success. The show thinks smart programmers don't need deadlines or requirements to create revolutionary software. They just need to impress the hot blond. 

[ketose]

Valium, mostly.

Valium was for housewives. The husbands liked it because it made them quiet zombies. The men just drank.

[Kel Varnsen]

Cameron seems to be drawn as such as Mary Sue. She goes from a college dropout to someone who resides in a house big enough to start a small company in it, and she starts her own company, either has the money to hire a bunch of Code Monkeys or else is so persuasive and magnetic, she has them all working there for free. Even if they are able to work for a share, it's amazing she has convinced so many people she can make a go at the business. Not to mention all her other talents. 

As far as money goes, did they ever say how much Cameron was paid by Cardiff to write the BIOS for the Giant? If it was the kind of thing that only a few people could have done (and it was obviously vital to the project) she could have potentially been paid pretty well for a short amount of work. And it is not like she has any real expenses. 

As far as the other coders, I wonder how much help they are going to be for Mutiny when their best ideas were the moon phase program and the bee keeping simulator.

[ketose]

I think we used the words "tape" or "record" synonymously for taping something off TV onto the VCR. (Speaking of VCRs, we're trying to buy one online and need some recommendations as to brand, model, etc. Maybe I should take this to the bits 'n' bytes thread.)

 

The Betamax people made a point of describing what kind of VCR they had. It was the Macintosh of VCRs.

You can get some VCRs at electronic stores or department stores, but they usually come with DVD players, too. I don't think brand matters much anymore, because they're basically all made in the same place sin China now. Get the extended warranty.

 

 

As far as money goes, did they ever say how much Cameron was paid by Cardiff to write the BIOS for the Giant? If it was the kind of thing that only a few people could have done (and it was obviously vital to the project) she could have potentially been paid pretty well for a short amount of work. And it is not like she has any real expenses. 

As far as the other coders, I wonder how much help they are going to be for Mutiny when their best ideas were the moon phase program and the bee keeping simulator.

Cameron was being paid $40,000 a year. Gordon complained it was more than what his wife made. Of course, she only made it for about 4 months.

[Kel Varnsen]

I took Cameron's "there are no bosses here" to mean more that everyone's skills and contributions are equally valued, regardless of experience and position. Somewhat the opposite of Cardiff.

 

I think it's obvious Donna is going to be the grown-up at Mutiny. I don't think Cameron is so naive to think that she can have a company with no infrastructure whatsoever. If she is, she'll be disabused of that as soon as she has decide how to incorporate.

I sort of got that. I just think it was funny that her big speech about no one is in charge is basically followed up with a "meet your new boss" scene.

[Irishmaple]

That kind of annoyed me.  I was thrilled when Cameron went to Donna to make a great and seemingly genuine speech about why she wanted Donna to come work for Mutiny; I was equally delighted when Donna finally decided to accept the offer.  Then I realized Cameron had essentially hired Donna to run the kindergarten and I got irritated.  Just because Donna has two kids doesn't mean she wants to be mom at work too.  Cameron's the head of the company; part of her job is to be the grownup.  It's not going to be easy for Donna to harness those Code Monkeys when they've been given free reign by Cameron.  I watched Silicon Valley; they treated Gabe like crap and that's essentially Donna's role in Mutiny.

[Kel Varnsen]

That kind of annoyed me.  I was thrilled when Cameron went to Donna to make a great and seemingly genuine speech about why she wanted Donna to come work for Mutiny; I was equally delighted when Donna finally decided to accept the offer.  Then I realized Cameron had essentially hired Donna to run the kindergarten and I got irritated.  Just because Donna has two kids doesn't mean she wants to be mom at work too.  Cameron's the head of the company; part of her job is to be the grownup.  It's not going to be easy for Donna to harness those Code Monkeys when they've been given free reign by Cameron.  I watched Silicon Valley; they treated Gabe like crap and that's essentially Donna's role in Mutiny.

But is it ok because the coders will have the freedom to make an online version of bee keeper simulator.

[annlaw78]

 

Cameron was being paid $40,000 a year. Gordon complained it was more than what his wife made. Of course, she only made it for about 4 months.

Yeah, she went from having nothing (bedding down in the office) to being pretty flush in a short amount of time.  I'm assuming she shares the house with several coder dudes and the musician guy she "inspiration bonked."  But that she'd have multiple credit cards with decent enough limits to use as start-up funding is a little goofy (I don't know if in 1984 the credit card companies had begun including approved credit cards in cereal boxes yet). 

 

 

Cameron seems to be drawn as such as Mary Sue. She goes from a college dropout to someone who resides in a house big enough to start a small company in it, and she starts her own company, either has the money to hire a bunch of Code Monkeys or else is so persuasive and magnetic, she has them all working there for free. Even if they are able to work for a share, it's amazing she has convinced so many people she can make a go at the business. Not to mention all her other talents.

At least it appears all the coders are young and presumably unattached, so their monetary needs are rather slim, and following the pretty Billie Jean-looking punk grrrl with the great ideas, regardless of her lack of business skills, leadership skills, or management skills, makes a bit more sense.  Donna wouldn't be doing it if she didn't have a husband who was now the CEO of Cardiff Electric, with an ownership stake.

 

 

But is it ok because the coders will have the freedom to make an online version of bee keeper simulator.

Ha!   Seriously, what was that?  I mean, I guess that could be the seed that leads to Farmville or Tamagutchi (sp?) pets, but, geez. 

Edited August 6, 2014 by annlaw78

[Kel Varnsen]

Yeah, she went from having nothing (bedding down in the office) to being pretty flush in a short amount of time.  I'm assuming she shares the house with several coder dudes and the musician guy she "inspiration bonked."  But that she'd have multiple credit cards with decent enough limits to use as start-up funding is a little goofy (I don't know if in 1984 the credit card companies had begun including approved credit cards in cereal boxes yet). 

 

I do wonder though, if Cameron had nothing, how exactly was she able to afford to attend that college/university where Joe found here in the pilot? Or was she just showing up at the classes and listening to the lectures without actually being a student? I am not sure how readily available credit cards were, but if Cameron was making $40,000 a year in 1983 (about $95,000 in today's dollars) then I assume she could walk into just about any bank, show them her paycheque and get set up with a credit card pretty quickly. Especially if she set up an account with them. And especially if she could get her friend John Bosworth to vouch for her that she was the head of the software division.

[Guest]

Cameron's supposed to be a genius & prodigy.  I'm sure the colleges fell all over themselves for her.  Did they even imply it was an impressive school?  With unemployed Joe McMillan as a guest lecturer?  

 

I've worked in software for 20 years and never heard "killer apps" until smart phones.  I know we didn't use "apps" in the 90s because I came from the restaurant industry where "apps" meant appetizers, and would've noticed.  (Not that others elsewhere didn't say "apps".)

 

The writing for this show sucked.  Lee Pace deserved better.  So much monologing and verbal dick-swinging.  Donna was the only likable character.  I didn't buy Cameron as Joe's love-- she's just not that appealing, genius or not.  Her smackdown of him wasn't really in character.  He made a business decision and she went for his emotional jugular.  

 

The best part of season 1 was Gordon and Donna's groovy decor at home.  

 

 

[dubbel zout]

But that she'd have multiple credit cards with decent enough limits to use as start-up funding is a little goofy

 

Not really; I graduated college in 1984 and was bombarded with credit card applications. It probably wouldn't be that hard for someone like Cam to score a few.

[ketose]

I kind of identify with Gordon. A good engineer can design almost anything, but it has to be something. The way Joe changed his mind might drive me crazy, too.

[Shriekingeel]

I can't see this getting renewed. The finale was stunningly low at 574K total viewers and 0.18 in the demo. (Compare to Saturday's premiere of Hell on Wheels at 2.3 million and 0.5). I will be amazed if there's a renewal

[Guest]

I figured when Cameron was bedding down in the office it wasn't due to lack of money but lack of responsibility or caring for hygiene or comfort or appearances.  I thought it was a failed attempt at making her more endearingly eccentric.  

 

"How cute, she lives/works in an ugly storeroom and bonks her boss to unblock her creativity."  Eh.

 

Entertainment Weekly made fun of what a cliched character she was, too.  She's a copy of the quirky, punk-y, computer genius girls on Criminal Minds and NCIS and so many other shows.  

 

 

[dubbel zout]

The finale was stunningly low at 574K total viewers and 0.18 in the demo.

 

Ouch. Those are terrible numbers.

[ketose]

I figured when Cameron was bedding down in the office it wasn't due to lack of money but lack of responsibility or caring for hygiene or comfort or appearances.  I thought it was a failed attempt at making her more endearingly eccentric.  

 

"How cute, she lives/works in an ugly storeroom and bonks her boss to unblock her creativity."  Eh.

 

Entertainment Weekly made fun of what a cliched character she was, too.  She's a copy of the quirky, punk-y, computer genius girls on Criminal Minds and NCIS and so many other shows.  

TV has this sad tendency of trying to be counterintuitive (let's have a gal be the scientist / computer nerd!) then turn it into a cliché by doing it everywhere.

 

The ratings really suck. They should have called this show "The Slingshot." Plus, the show ends just as Lee Pace could have done some post-Guardians press for HACF.

[ketose]

Betamax (or just Beta) was a smaller magnetic cassette tape that could only record at one speed. VHS had 3, but almost no one used LP. It had better quality and cost more money. The real killer was that there was some conflict where the Beta format did not want to be used by the porn industry and there's a theory that porn was the top type of movie that you wanted delivered to your house instead of going to a theater.

 

Beta equipment lasted for years after VHS, because newsrooms used it for their live shot cameras due to the size and quality.

[green]

As for that betamax, can someone fill me in on that. I had a rich relative in Texas who bought one and everyone thought he was nuts for not getting VHS. He spent a fortune, I think. But I got the idea the betamax was the Edsel of VCRs, not the Macintosh. It didn't stay around long, right? Was that just because it was so expensive?

 

What ketose said in part.     But it was kind of an after the fact thing that sealed the deal for there was a reason before that.  The reason that led the porn industry to release their videos on VHS to start with.

 

Sony created the Beta format and refused to license the hardware to run it to other manufacturers much like Apple did the same with their hardware.

 

Meanwhile JVC, who created the VHS format, immediately licensed the hardware to play their "format" to their competitors as well as producing their own hardware sharing those hardware profits and making the real profits in the licensing that allowed non-JVC machines to play their "format" itself.  The result was tons more hitting the shelf with very competitive prices that were way way lower than a Betamax machine from Sony.  Just like PC clones were way cheaper then the Apple line.  And just like Microsoft, JVC profited from the explosion of sales numbers of machines that could play their "format" and so cornered the market.

 

In both cases -- Apple and Sony -- their greed to control it and hoard all the profits for themselves did them in.

 

The porn industry simply followed the numbers and since almost everyone was buying the cheaper VHS format over the Betamax that had priced itself into oblivion that is the format they released their "product" on as did Hollywood with more main stream movies as Betamax machine sales collapsed.  It took a couple of years for all this to play out and VHS to "win" the format war but it was pretty rapid historically speaking.

 

Beta was technically somewhat better quality but you had to be almost the video equivalent of an audiophile to really see it or even care at their high prices.  Probably why your rich Texas relative bought it.  It was kind of a brief status thing by people in the videophile world as they turned up their noses at VHS only to end up with an expensive machine that they couldn't play anything on since all the sellable and rentable tapes eventually became 99.9% VHS format over the next few years.

 

Ironically JVC made the "Sony mistake" in their audio cassette department when they didn't license other hardware makers of cassette players to use their technically superior noise reduction system called some alphabet soup name starting with an "H" as I recall.  The Dolby people took advantage of that and licensed theirs to everyone and became millionaires.  Always found that a bit funny.

 

Hope this wasn't too OT but this could be the last thread for a show that stands in need of cancellation so I thought why not.

 

On topic?  Go, Mutiny!

Edited August 7, 2014 by green

[Jamoche]

There were licensed Apple ][ and Mac clones. They sucked (I had one of the Mac clones on a job once - there were certain Adobe products that flat out crashed on it because it had some flawed memory assumptions), and when they sucked the users called Apple for support. So Apple made less on the things than selling directly and then had additional costs on top of that. It wasn't greed, it was being blamed for the lack of quality control that they couldn't do anything about - trust me, Steve Jobs was a hell of a lot more driven by the latter.

[ganesh]

I thought the finale tried to hard too. I don't mind the main three splitting up, but Joe burning the computers was silly, especially since we know they stand to make a life time of bank. I can buy Cameron wanting to do something else. I didn't have much of a problem with Joe this season until the end. He did have the vision to put the team together and they did build a computer that's going to work and be useful for decades. 

 

I think it's weird Gordon couldn't think of what to do next though. You work on the next generation, obviously. 

 

I'd watch a second season. I actually like Gordon and Donna.

[Yolapukka]

What I find puzzling is that Joe and Gordon actually did succeed in making the computer they set out to build, yet there was an impression that they both found they'd fallen short, that it felt hollow. I can understand a feeling of let-down on Gordon's part when he had to stop soaking in that triumph and figure out what happens next. I can understand Joe feeling like he lost out on achieving something special when the charm of Cameron's OS had to be sacrificed to keep the project viable and he was confronted shortly afterward by the Macintosh, a computer that was so much more than he'd envisioned. However, that OS just didn't do what the Mac could, arguably the GUI that Apple incorporated made it instantly obsolete. They weren't going to be capable of competing with the Macintosh and as an audience we have the benefit of hindsight to know that it may have broken ground on what a personal  computer could do, but also, that it was never much of a financial success in the way the fictional Giant portable is apparently producing. 

 

I think there is a case to be made that Cameron's OS nearly sank the project more than once. That it, in part was what led to the cost overruns that led to the PC division running out  of money and resulted in Bos's bank fraud which caused the company to be shut-down before they could present at Comdex. That the strain it put on Gordon led to the chain of events that resulted in Hunt intercepting the fax of technical specs meant for Donna and teaming up with creepy Brian to build the Slingshot. The OS compromised everything the original concept of the Giant was supposed to be; faster, cheaper, lighter. Gordon was 100% right to remove it from the Giant to keep it viable and Joe made the only decision open to him when he supported Gordon, the alternative was no computer at all. 

 

My biggest problem with the truck fire it was that it just really pissed me off,  I wanted to throat-punch Joe when he doused it with gasoline, then set it alight. He was negating every sacrifice that had been made to get them there, including people that had lost their livelihood, because the success the team experienced had not been on his terms and he was all that mattered. There were moments when he seemed genuinely happy for Gordon, if not himself at the launch. In fact the few times I found Joe showing any degree of likability during the season were those times he enjoyed seeing someone else in a good place, seeing Gordon looking pleased in his new office, when Joe genuinely enjoyed entertaining the Clark children, or watching Cameron's coup against chart-obsessed supervisor Steve.   I thought  as the season went on that he was getting a grip on his out of control tantrums and becoming slightly less self-involved. Burning the truck because he was dissatisfied seemed like a huge step backward. Moreover, just like his vandalism at IBM, it was an expensive but ultimately empty gesture of destruction that changed nothing. He could have burned all of his lovely, lovely suits in a bonfire and I would have thought it kind of awesome though also alarming. Burning the computers made me wonder if he's still much the same narcissistic rage-monkey he started out as in the premiere, rather than someone who was moving beyond that, certainly I thought the latter was the story the writing was giving Joe.

In spite of that, I loved the ending the finale gave to Joe, even if his vision quest in search of mom or whatever seems a bit too neat. Hopefully it was the season's not the series finale.

Edited August 9, 2014 by yuggapukka

[ganesh]

I can understand a feeling of let-down on Gordon's part when he had to stop soaking in that triumph and figure out what happens next.

 

Stepping back and looking at the big picture, after the other guy read the favorable review, Gordon should get that he's got steady work for a long time though. Start working on the next generation. It's not super creative work, which may be he realized he's locked into the same thing for maybe the rest of his life, but the company should be profitable and every pretty rich for a long time. 

[ketose]

Taking quick look, I see that Microsoft announced Windows in 1983 but did not release it until late 1985. Creating a custom GUI would have been a bad idea on the order of Tandy's DeskMate. A company like Cardiff would have leveraged their sales to get better and cheaper technology from vendors to keep up with the Slingshot 2 and whatever else was coming out. IBM clones have been about compatibility, speed and price.

 

I think Joe MacMillan wanted to be Steve Jobs and I can kind of see why he burned down the computer truck and walked away. He didn't want to make money. If he did, he could be selling IBMs at his father's company. He wanted to make something special. He thought it was making a better IBM, but then he saw what Cameron (the Oracle of Austin) did and thought he could make people fall in love with the Contrail and him. You could kind of tell in that scene where he's asking the code monkeys for ideas and they have nothing. Joe never asked for ideas before. He was out of ideas as well.

[dubbel zout]

That it, in part was what led to the cost overruns that led to the PC division running out  of money

Was Cameron's OS the big money suck? I thought it was Joe constantly changing what he wanted the computer to be right when Gordon gave him what he'd previously asked for, and then Gordon had to basically start from scratch. Cameron's OS developed seemed to be happening somewhat independently from the hardware.

 

I think another letdown of Gordon's was realizing that he'd probably never experience that kind of euphoria again. Improving the Giant might give him some satisfaction, but you can only create something once.

[ganesh]

I don't think Cameron's OS led to the money problems either. The compact size and the speed I believe are the main things. Because they had the new motherboard design, they probably had to pay more for manufacture and the actual design of it would be different too, so that might have been more. 

 

Improving the Giant might give him some satisfaction, but you can only create something once.

 

I totally get that, but looking at my paycheck every week is pretty good satisfaction too. 

[ketose]

If Cameron's OS required 384K of memory, it was a big money suck. It was also a speed suck, since the Slingshot ran faster as well. Gordon solved both problems by taking out the personality that took up CPU clock cycles and RAM to run and made it faster and cheaper than its competitor.

 

At the start of the project, Joe wrote half the speed and half the price. That was his original vision. Then he added the weight thing. I think Cameron was responsible for a lot of stupid stuff to drag down the system. Unfortunately, this is what R&D is. Every time there's a new prototype of a widget, someone has an idea to improve it, whether it is a good idea or some executive trying to look smart by demanding it have more sexy lines and be quieter.

 

At least Gordon got to name it, eventually.

[Yolapukka]

 

Was Cameron's OS the big money suck? I thought it was Joe constantly changing what he wanted the computer to be right when Gordon gave him what he'd previously asked for, and then Gordon had to basically start from scratch. Cameron's OS developed seemed to be happening somewhat independently from the hardware.

 

Cameron's OS was a big part of Joe's ever-changing demands which upped the development costs. It didn't help that Simon's case necessitated yet another redesign of the hardware but at least it also had a serendipitous effect on the heat issues, unlike Cameron's OS which slowed the machine down and upped the cost of manufacture.

Edited August 9, 2014 by yuggapukka

[LJonEarth]

I figured when Cameron was bedding down in the office it wasn't due to lack of money but lack of responsibility or caring for hygiene or comfort or appearances.  I thought it was a failed attempt at making her more endearingly eccentric.  

 

"How cute, she lives/works in an ugly storeroom and bonks her boss to unblock her creativity."  Eh.

 

Entertainment Weekly made fun of what a cliched character she was, too.  She's a copy of the quirky, punk-y, computer genius girls on Criminal Minds and NCIS and so many other shows.  

 

I kind of read it like, in order for Cameron to not be sleeping in the office and Joe's place, she would have to apply for and get an apartment. Maybe this was similar to what you're saying. I don't know what it was like in the 80s, but, thinking back to when I had to do this for the first time in the early 2000s, that would mean 1) she would have to go looking for apartments, 2) be okay with the landlord and vice versa, and 3) have a credit history and first and last or someone responsible to vouch for her. As the aimless, trainwreck, dropout (I don't remember what year of school she was), I don't know that she'd have the willpower of means to get all of that done. ...Which bodes well for her running a company.

[dubbel zout]

Thanks for the explanation on Cameron's OS. I don't know much about the design/engineering side of computers.

[Watcher0363]

I do wonder though, if Cameron had nothing, how exactly was she able to afford to attend that college/university where Joe found here in the pilot? Or was she just showing up at the classes and listening to the lectures without actually being a student? I am not sure how readily available credit cards were, but if Cameron was making $40,000 a year in 1983 (about $95,000 in today's dollars) then I assume she could walk into just about any bank, show them her paycheque and get set up with a credit card pretty quickly. Especially if she set up an account with them. And especially if she could get her friend John Bosworth to vouch for her that she was the head of the software division.

If Cameron's father was killed in Vietnam. She would have been entitled to VA schooling benefits. Tution, books, a little living expense. As long as her grades were C's are better for a bachelors degreee.

[Watcher0363]

I kind of read it like, in order for Cameron to not be sleeping in the office and Joe's place, she would have to apply for and get an apartment. Maybe this was similar to what you're saying. I don't know what it was like in the 80s, but, thinking back to when I had to do this for the first time in the early 2000s, that would mean 1) she would have to go looking for apartments, 2) be okay with the landlord and vice versa, and 3) have a credit history and first and last or someone responsible to vouch for her. As the aimless, trainwreck, dropout (I don't remember what year of school she was), I don't know that she'd have the willpower of means to get all of that done. ...Which bodes well for her running a company.

Getting an apartment in the late 70's and early 80's was no big deal. Fill out an application, hardly anyone checked credit histories, because young people did not have them. You gave them 1st and last month's rent and a security deposit. You were all set. By the late eighties with the rise of computers that all changed. Your history could be checked by large apartment renting companies, however the privately own complexes were a free for all situation for quite a while. In 1988 I was living in a complex owned by a doctor who let his very young sons run the place. It was very unprofessional which had its drawbacks and perks. Drawbacks getting anything done like minor maintenance. However not paying rent on time was no big issue for over a year, as long as they got it some time that month.

[ganesh]

Cameron also was pretty flush with cash if she was getting a 40K salary. So a pay stub might have been sufficient as well. 

[Yolapukka]

 I think Cameron's initial homelessness wasn't so much an attempt to be quirky as it was to just be realistic about the situation she'd be in by taking the jump to join Cardiff. She skipped out on finishing what was likely her final year and moved to another city via overnight bus with little more than the contents of a duffle bag to her name, She may not have even had sufficient cash to rent a room until she received her first paycheck and, as well, she was hyper-focused on work, so she wasn't taking the time to look for an acceptable place, especially if she was content to throw a sleeping bag on the floor when she needed a little sleep and have a sponge bath in the ladies room. After Bos warned her about living at the office and until she moved in with Yo-yo, she was probably spending just enough time at Joe's where she could get a good night's sleep and a shower (though clearly she did not bathe often enough for Joe's taste) without being there to the point where she seemed to have moved in unofficially and she may have grabbed a room at a cheap hotel when she didn't crash at Joe's or nap during all nighters. 

 

It probably also says something about Joe's innate callousness that she was seemingly recruited without an offer of an advance despite needing to uproot herself to live in another city. 

 

I think the role filled out nicely throughout the season, though I can agree that at the beginning she seemed a bit opaque with a lot of the emphasis going to showing her fierce(!), punk-grrrrrl(!) outer characteristics while not enough opportunity was taken to show her personal background and inner life. I still feel like I know her the least of the main characters.

 

I don't agree that she's a Mary-Sue though I definitely think she's been over-propped. The character is interesting and I believe she's talented at her job, They can stop having other characters tell her she's awesome in such florid terms anytime now. 

Edited August 10, 2014 by yuggapukka

[attica]

I considered the finale to be a wish-fulfillment for me, in that the two women are admired and respected by those they work with and supervise, and that they get the opportunity to run their own shop. Because that's so not how the tech world ran. And we can argue does not yet.

 

I remember thinking that Cam's hairdo may have been a nod to the Apple commercial back a few. Seeing her roots grow out suggests the show did a little makeover!

[ketose]

I considered the finale to be a wish-fulfillment for me, in that the two women are admired and respected by those they work with and supervise, and that they get the opportunity to run their own shop. Because that's so not how the tech world ran. And we can argue does not yet.

 

I remember thinking that Cam's hairdo may have been a nod to the Apple commercial back a few. Seeing her roots grow out suggests the show did a little makeover!

Joe did say she looked like Cameron when he watched the commercial.

[dubbel zout]

despite needing to uproot herself to live in another city.

Did she need to move? Both Cameron and Gordon were in the lecture Joe gave at the beginning of the season. Then she and Joe had sex in the back room of a bar? game arcade? that was most likely in the same city. There was no indication that Cameron had to move. I think we probably didn't see her living situation until she started staying overnight at Cardiff because it wasn't important. (YMMV.) She'd already been established at the programming genius, and staying overnight at Cardiff was also to show her singlemindedness.

[annlaw78]

Did she need to move? Both Cameron and Gordon were in the lecture Joe gave at the beginning of the season. Then she and Joe had sex in the back room of a bar? game arcade? that was most likely in the same city. There was no indication that Cameron had to move. I think we probably didn't see her living situation until she started staying overnight at Cardiff because it wasn't important. (YMMV.) She'd already been established at the programming genius, and staying overnight at Cardiff was also to show her singlemindedness.

The lecture happened on Austin, at "Austin Tech." I don't think Gordon was in that lecture. Cardiff is in Dallas. About 3 hours apart. Joe and Gordon drove to Austin from Dallas to recruit Cameron.

Edited August 10, 2014 by annlaw78