Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[brian.hammack@rook.wa.com (Brian Hammack)]

 Bedlam chanted almost zenlike:

 "<| What do you guys think about the "docudrama" that TNT aired last
   | night, "Pirates of Silicon Valley"?

Poorly done.  A freakin' soap opera.

 "<| I've heard that Steve Jobs is a terrible boss to work for, but he
   | was portrayed as an egomaniacal psychotic on the show.  Bill
   | Gates, on the other hand, came off looking like the Saint of the

I don't know there... he wasn't given too much harshness, albeit he did
get painted socially inept, but you have to admit that that end scene
where he is portrayed as Big Brother did cut into his saintliness.

   | if you ask me. Is Ted Turner buddies with Bill Gates?

Two of the five richest men are respresented in this movie:  the
subject (Bill Gates) and the producer (Ted Turner).  Mathematics?

   | Is somebody afraid of the iMac, the best selling computer
   | right now?  What's going on with this?  I smell a private agenda.

What does the iMac have to do with the movie?  The end of the story is
where Gates buys shares of ("is part owner of") Apple to keep it afloat
and the subtitle mentions Jobs is back at Apple.  This was before a new
product was announced, and you have to admit that the movie didn't give
much shrift to Apple's product line (the I, the II line broadly, the
Lisa without calling it a failure, the Mac self-contained units)... the
Newton was never mentioned and the iMac was well in the future.

What cracked me up is,
 #1 - We see Apple //'s (and even a ///!) on people's desks in the Mac
development area; so what were they programming Mac wares on again?
 #2 - The Mac that made a startup beep during a demo
 #3 - The PC that made an Apple // startup beep
 #4 - Woz in bed playing a nonexistant Atari game with nonexistant
joystick cables (he was NOT holding a radio-control joystick)
 #5 - Was it me or were the three Apple ][ prototypes at the trade show
in platinum cases instead of beige?  (Nice of them to play Apple Panic)
 #6 - Not just that the Mac demo didn't SAY the word "hello" in the
movie like it did in real life, but what the heck was Jobs doing with
his hands on that keyboard, rebooting?

Private agenda...  Hmm.  Softer treatment of business practices, yes.
When Gates tells Jobs near the end that having a better product doesn't
matter, I had figured he'd explain things like marketing what you have.
Of course, having Jobs say the Apple II was "insanely great" to Woz at
the trade show had me wondering how accurate to history this was to be.

                                                        << mushroom >>

 * 2qwk! 2.04 * For this I evolved a thumb?