Hacker Cinema
Riptide
1984 · TV series · 3 seasons
Created by Frank Lupo, Stephen J. Cannell
The cases of a private investigations agency run by two Vietnam War veterans and their computer geek friend from high school, armed with toughness, their own helicopter, and the third's technical ability.
4 neutralfrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
Mine comes from a line in an episode of an 80s American TV series called Riptide. One of the characters used that as an alias. For some reason, that stuck with me ...
This was likely a conversion of Sikorski S-55 helicopters that were retired from the US military around 1969/1970.
The look of this helicopter reminds me of the outwardly similar Sikorski S-58 that was used in the TV series "Riptide". I saw a few episodes of that as a child and I guess I'll never be able to forget that particular association.
Basically a ripoff of the robot-butler concept, replacing the wheels with rotors. In 1984, the TV series Riptide already had a robot serving drinks: https://www.filmaffinity.com/es/movieimage.php?imageId=981095032
Robot butler pic here: http://bearbottoms1.com/smart-homes/
One might argue that rotors and wheels are similar in nature since they both are a rotating device
Note that Autism and Asperger's Syndrome are "male dominated". Something like 4:1.
If you have a field toward which nerds gravitate, it will become male-dominated.
What happened around 1984? Yes, home computers were becoming much more common as the article aptly notes.
But what else? It was becoming obvious that the people who flocked to these things most, who outright related to these computers, were nerds.
Popular culture latched on to this instantly!
What was on the big screen and on TV?
- War Games (1983)
- Superman III (1983) - Major character is a computer nerd played by Richard Pryor (August "Gus" Gorman).
- Riptide TV Series (1983) [1] - Major character Murray "Boz" Bozinsky is an utter nerd
- Whiz Kids TV Series (1983) [2]
When 1984 rolled around the trend went all out:
- Revenge of the Nerds (1984)
Nerd stereotypes were in the spotlight, as well as the connection between nerds and technology, especially computers. And that of course is going to have some effect on enrollment in fields of study having to do with computers. Young people respond to stereotypes in mass culture.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riptide_%28TV_series%29
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_%28TV_series%29