Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Halt and Catch Fire

unstack.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 117 posts

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#21

Post by orev »

scar wrote: post #10

There's such an annoying scene in the first episode of that show that kinda broke the immersion for me. They introduced Cameron Howe as some sort of world class hacker that could do anything so one of her first scenes was her typing something.. and typing she did, one finger at a time. I mean, wtf. World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before. That scene near…

It may have been (probably was) a conscious choice illustrating how new things were (i.e. those people didn’t grow up typing to a level where it was muscle memory). Also, keyboard layouts on early machines were far from standardized (other than the qwerty letters, almost every other symbol was not in a standard location from machine to machine), so even if you knew one machine you might not know others.

Most actors and directors put a lot of thought into small details like this, so when you see something like this it’s often intentional.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#22

Post by mandw »

timenotwasted wrote: post #9
burnte wrote: post #3

It was a fun show. I really enjoyed it, a fictional run through the 80s and 90s computing industries.

Yeah a truly fantastic show all the way through the end. One of my favorites by far.

I have to admit, when a specific person died I was feeling so bad about it I never watched the last episode. I still have it on the drive how many years later.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#23

Post by jancsika »

scar wrote: post #10

There's such an annoying scene in the first episode of that show that kinda broke the immersion for me. They introduced Cameron Howe as some sort of world class hacker that could do anything so one of her first scenes was her typing something.. and typing she did, one finger at a time. I mean, wtf. World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before. That scene near…

> World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before.

Vladimir Horowitz very famously played a televised concert back in the 80s where, for the first time, a few cameras stayed focused closely on his hands. He had horrible technique. It was horrible by his own professed standard: for most of the fundamental things he himself taught to his students, he was doing the opposite! This was broadcast to millions of people. Piano teachers everywhere were pissed.

While that bad technique isn't particularly noticeable in the resulting sound for that concert, there's an analysis somewhere that shows the damage it did as he aged. You can hear certain problems he was having in his later recordings, and video from the same period confirms that the bad technique (like straining the wrist on octaves) was the culprit[1].

In any case, all kinds of world class people do all kinds of fucked up shit.

Edit:

1: In other words, when he was middle-aged he could play octaves accurately with a strained wrist, but he couldn't do that in old age. However, if he had been leveraging the weight/power of his entire arm for the octaves, he would have gotten accuracy in both cases.

2: IIRC, he didn't realize what his technique looked like until someone showed him the video. :)

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#24

Post by GranPC »

mandw wrote: post #22
timenotwasted wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah a truly fantastic show all the way through the end. One of my favorites by far.

I have to admit, when a specific person died I was feeling so bad about it I never watched the last episode. I still have it on the drive how many years later.

You should probs edit out the spoiler, or encode it somehow for others who haven't watched it yet!

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#26

Post by greenbit »

The Commodore PET 4032 video system was generated by a 6545 (6845 equivalent) cathode ray tube controller, which generated the video buffer addresses and the HS and VS sync pulses. This was memory mapped and if one was not careful with POKE commands, you could effectively stop the CRT raster scan, leaving the beam parked at the center of the screen. This could burn the phosphors off that spot in a matter of minutes. Not exactly HCF, but a similar vibe.

(The PET had its own monitor that, unlike common composite monitors of the era, apparently would not continue to scan when the sync went away)

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#27

Post by jrmg »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #4
burnte wrote: post #3

It was a fun show. I really enjoyed it, a fictional run through the 80s and 90s computing industries.

It really starts strong too. The first couple of episodes are fantastic.

Huh. I haven’t rewatched the show, but when I saw it originally - admittedly shortly after watching Mad Men - I thought “this is trying to be Mad Men, but it’s the '80s and in the computer industry” and interpreted Lee Pace as a laundered Don Draper.

The show is much more, and much better, than that though. I’m glad I kept watching.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#28

Post by jrmg »

scar wrote: post #10

There's such an annoying scene in the first episode of that show that kinda broke the immersion for me. They introduced Cameron Howe as some sort of world class hacker that could do anything so one of her first scenes was her typing something.. and typing she did, one finger at a time. I mean, wtf. World class hacker that literally types one finger at a time, like she had never used a keyboard before. That scene near…

That feels entirely realistic for the time to me. It would certainly’ve been realistic to my formative years in the industry (a little later - turn of the century).

I still can’t ‘properly’ touch-type.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#29

Post by jrmg »

Love how many people here are thinking this is about (or just taking it as an opportunity to talk about) the under-appreciated TV show!

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#30

Post by [deleted] »

whateveracct wrote: post #12
0xCMP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that it is such a niche show in practice. The acting of Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis in particular are so good across all 4 seasons. I recommend it at every chance I get, but few people ever watch it. They're more likely to give Silicon Valley a try.

Silicon Valley is also pretty good. I went in expecting not to like it (in a Big Bang Theory "about nerds but not for them" way) but came out loving it. It may read as parody to some but it barely is. It's a comedic but accurate take on west coast tech industry of the 2010s

[deleted]
Post reply on HN