Triumph of the Nerds
1996 · TV series · 1 season
It happened more or less by accident; the people who made it happen were amateurs; and for the most part they still are. From his own Silicon Valley garage, author Bob Cringely puts PC bigshots and nerds on the spot, and tells their incredible true stories. Like the industry itself, the series is informative, funny and brash.
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He's best known for Triumph of the Nerds but I really liked Plane Crazy, where he tries to build an airplane while basically having a breakdown:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164814/
The gist is that every software comes with a license agreement, and the publisher can choose the conditions under which their software is available by specifying terms of use, modification, and distribution for their software.
Although, as the publisher, there are countless ways to which you can specify how restrictive or open these terms are, most industries usually have "standard" set of terms that most commercial license agreements follow, while a few Open Source Software Licenses are widely adopted. It's really inconvenient to ask end users to understand a non-generally accepted license agreement in most cases.
The history of software licensing mostly goes back to the 70s / 80s, before that time, IBM and mainframes typically gave away most of the software for free as did most computer enthusiasts. Bill Gates was somewhat controversial at the time for arguing software should not be free, in a letter he wrote to the hobbyist computer club (link to wikipedia below).
The topic of software licensing has since become philosophical, where some people think software should be free as in "freedom" and should benefit everyone. From a commercial perspective, some people see OSS as a way to grow adoption of their products. Others think it's important to charge for software in order to continue maintaining it.
Some resources: - https://opensource.org/licenses -> lets you search by criteria (greeter or fewer "freedoms" granted for different OSS license types.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists, arguably the letter that started the whole debate around software licensing.
- Documentaries: for the history, I would suggest Revolution OS, and Triumph of the nerds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
- first court case against a Chinese telco using cracked software was regarding EDA software, in case you're interested in learning how phone home technology came about: https://www.itca.com/news/using-friendly-jurisdictions-to-enforce-copyrights-in-difficult-jurisdictions/
We wrote a few other blog posts about this topic (about software IP protection) on licensespring.com/blog.
To celebrate archive.org’s reopening here a great piece of computer history: “Triumph of the Nerds” from 1996.
The series is 3 episodes with interviews with the great ones of the personal computer revolution: amongst others the maker of the Altair, Steve and Steve from Apple where Steve Jobs claims he invented everything (he doesn’t, let it go) and a great, detailed, coverage of how Microsoft won the IBM contract and Gary Kildall didn’t.
Also, it shows Bill Gates claiming he invented the GUI (he did…. say that) and then the Parc Alto story is told followed by the story of the ultimate demise of Apple Computer after Microsoft introduced Windows.
For those who don’t want to dedicate 3 hours of their life to this but are curious: here a transcript: https://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html
Practical note, “download all” didn’t work for me but the individual parts played in the browser.
And/or the 3-part PBS series Triumph of the Nerds, which was based on it and has tons of great interviews with the personal computer pantheon - not just Jobs and Gates and Allen, etc., but MITS people, Intel, the behind-the-scenes people who made the IBM PC, so on. Good stuff even today (the documentary is from ~1995 ish, I think). It's on YT.
For a bit of context, the TV series this refers to is called „Triumph of the Nerds” and it’s a great watch, even today (maybe ever more so?).
"Picasso had a saying. He said, 'Good artists copy; great artists steal', and we have, you know, always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
-- Steve Jobs, in Triumph of the Nerds (1996 documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jeZ7m0ycw
Hacker Culture, to me atleast is somewhat broad.
Here are some places where I found good representations:
1. Halt and Catch Fire: 70s/80s tech scene. Full stack hackers building products, companies. Depicts the hackers, code monkeys, visionary types, managers, financers- everyone. Also shows the transition of the business scene from analog to digital.
2. Westworld (Season 1 only) is brilliant. It depicts the ambition, the hubris involved in creating something new and grand.
3. The Travelling Salesman: P vs NP is solved. What are the implications, what are the uses, how will the State react? What is the role of the people imvolved?
4. Primer: Mind bending movie on time machine.
5. and 6. Imitation Game and A Beautiful Mind: I believe most people on HN will like these.
7. Agora is a hidden gem not many know about. It is anout Hypatia.
8. Dangerous Knowledge is a documentary about paradigm changing science. Godel, Turing, Boltzmann are covered.
9. Fractals is also a nice documentary with interviews from Mendelbrot.
10. Codebreaker is a mich more accurate biography of Turing that covers other aspects of his, not limited to his codebreaking and homosexuality.
11. Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz: very nice and left a deep impression in me.
____
I am yet to watch:
1. Hidden Figures
2. Stand and Deliver
3. I'm In
4. TPB: AFK
5. Pirates of Silicon Valley
6. Triumph of the Nerds
____
Harvard Professor Oliver Knill has a list and clips from movies where math appears: https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/
____
I came to know a lot of these movies through Kagi search and Reddit search. "Best movies for mathematicians and computer scientists" and similar searches.
When I was growing up, I saw Triumph of the Nerds by Bob Cringely on PBS. About midway through as I recall there's Jim Warren sitting in a hot tub with a killer view talking about the West Coast Computer Faire and early computing. I had only recently started coding in QBASIC then Visual Basic. Seeing that documentary helped cement my interest in programming and computers in general.
Thanks Jim!
Edit: Found the first clip. Wish I had a chance to meet him, sounded like a character: https://youtu.be/toSRmKKiosQ?t=1790
Code Rush is one of my go-to's when I need inspiration. I was in tech when it came out and it really inspired me how much a group of dedicated programmers could do. https://archive.org/details/CodeRush_616
Same for Triumph Of The Nerds and its follow-up, Nerds 2.0.1 - A Brief History Of The Internet. Fascinating to hear what went on in the back rooms and halls of the people creating the Internet and Web. https://archive.org/details/nerds-2.0.1-a-brief-history-of-the-internet-1998
Hackers Definitely some unrealistic Hollywood effects but, it's fun and is a good representation of how tech in the 90's felt.
Antitrust It's fun to see the obvious digs at Bill Gates. John "Maddog" Hall consulted on this film which is why you see things like Gnome on all the screens. I got to talk to him in the hall at a conference once right after Antitrust came out. Really interesting guy.
Sneakers: One of my all-time favorites. The premise wasn't super-realistic (guy figures out a back door to all encryption and murder ensues) but the technology of the time was otherwise pretty accurately represented, and the acting is superb.
You'll notice that all of these came out over 20 years ago. I haven't seen much since that captures the feeling of what being in technology felt like to me. People still had that sense from the 60's and 70's that technology could be used to make the world better. People really did want to use technology for more than making money off of ads and personal data.
Check out "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview" which is long form footage from the clips used in "Triumph of the Nerds" and "Revenge of the Nerds". Two fantastic documentaries that chronicle the history of personal computing.
If you have any interest in the origins of the personal computer you should track down the sublime documentary series "Triumph of the Nerds" by Bob Cringely. You an find various versions on Youtube.
There was a television series which told of the early days of micro-computing, this may be it... https://archive.org/details/triumph_of_the_nerds
https://youtu.be/ySqEvijSDGE?t=229
In case anyone else is interested, that is from the PBS documentary "Triumph of the Nerds", an absolutely brilliant historical record of the personal computer.
> Every woman I know with a genuine and deep interest in STEM subjects has had to deal with some level of toxic/sexist/whatever stuff in their life, and they persevered and dealt with it because they weren't going to let it get in the way of their passion.
I grew up in an era when kids interested in STEM were "nerds" and were harassed, denigrated, and had lower social status. This changed when Bill Gates made his first billion. Suddenly, people realized that STEM was a ticket to the good life.
The title of the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" was no accident.
A Seattle local comedy show "Almost Live" regularly ran skits about Microsoft engineers being socially inept and unable to get dates. (Of course, the joke turned out to be on Almost Live, as the super wealthy Microsoft engineers transformed the city.)
I suppose my point is that men who liked STEM had persevered in spite of the negative image of it.
One of the most interesting characters from the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" was Kildall. His company created CP/M, and depending on who's telling the story either lost the deal with IBM to create the operating system for the PC, or just didn't care about it.
Here's the quote about him:
Let's say for a minute that Eubanks was correct, and Gary Kildall didn't give a shit about the business. Who said that he had to? CP/M was his invention; Digital Research was his company. The fact that it succeeded beyond anyone's expectations did not make those earlier expectations invalid. Gary Kildall's ambition was limited, something that is not supposed to be a factor in American business. If you hope for a thousand and get a million, you are still expected to want more, but he didn't.
If this is true, he was the polar opposite of almost everyone else in the story. It reminds me of that line in Breaking Bad when Jesse asks Walter how much is enough. Kildall knew the answer, and stuck with it. I didn't get that sense from any other character, except maybe Woz.
Kildall spent the later part of his career hosting The Computer Chronicles, a PBS weekly news show that ended up documenting the entire early history of personal computers. The shows are on YouTube and are fascinating to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJ6eQKpHZgsZBla4JgKj3A
Cringley was involved in adapting this book into a 3 part documentary called Triumph of the Nerds. It's a fun glimpse into the early days of computing. Cringley managed to interview Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and a whole host of figures from those days (too many to list).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
It's from Triumph of the Nerds, worth watching the whole thing (3 hours long)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
Lots of good ones already mentioned, but here's a few nobody's brought up yet:
Orson Welles' F for Fake: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072962/
Robert X. Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
The Maysles Brothers' Gimme Shelter: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065780/
Randy Olson's Flock of Dodos: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800334/
Les Blank's Burden of Dreams: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083702/
Steve James' Hoop Dreams: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110057/
Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker's The War Room: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108515/
For a college "ethics in computers" course, our professor had us watch "Triumph of the Nerds" by Robert Cringely. It's from 1996, so not the most recent history, but it was still an interesting watch. There was another documentary about the dot-com bubble we watched, but I can't recall the name. Overall a very interesting class because the professor had a lot of industry experience and watched companies rise and fall.
That's pretty sad. :(
I was a big fan of Triumph of the Nerds [1] and his other documentaries and books. :(
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
Needs 'Triumph of the Nerds' in documentaries, and 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' needs to move to any of the film sections (it's not a documentary).
Time to show my age here!
Others have listed some great, entertaining reads already:
Hackers,
Soul Of A New Machine (which won a Pulitzer),
Cringley's PBS series Triumph Of The Nerds (available on YouTube),
Where Wizards Stay Up Late
Some not mentioned so far (as I write):
The ancient, online Jargon File is a large glossary that captures a lot of early computer subculture through its lexicon. Eric S. Raymond maintains it today, but it originated way back in the 1970s: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/
"American Experience," on PBS, did a stellar documentary on the origins of Silicon Valley and the pervasive startup mentality there. It's all about the rise of the semiconductor industry, starting with transistors. Watch online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/
Dropping LSD was, it turns out, crucial to the origins of personal computing! This I learned from Jaron Lanier and Kevin Kelly, who recommended John Markoff's What The Dormouse Said: http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Personal-Computer-ebook/dp/B000OCXFYM/ref=sr_1_3
The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer is a short book but also a fun read. Doron Swade, technology historian and assistant director of London's Science Museum, races to build a copy of Charles Babbage's "difference engine" before the anniversary of said machine; he tells his travails in building it while giving Charles Babbage's story at the same time: http://www.amazon.com/Difference-Engine-Charles-Babbage-Computer/dp/0142001449/ref=sr_1_2
No one has mentioned books covering the dark side of hacking. There are some great reads out there, and infosec is a crucial part of computer history.
CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier covers Kevin Mitnick, the Chaos Computer Club, and Robert Tappin Morris (who, somewhat inadvertently, wrote the first Internet worm). Mitnick disputes his section of the book, but it's fascinating nonetheless. Worth it for the Morris part alone: http://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Frontier/dp/0684818620/ref=sr_1_5
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Clifford Stoll is a fun read. Stoll is an astronomer by trade, and his analytical thinking can be an inspiration: http://www.amazon.com/The-Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Espionage/dp/1416507787
The Watchman is a true crime thriller you won't be able to put down. The author set out to write a book on Mitnick but wound up detouring to do a story on Kevin Poulsen, who is now an excellent infosec writer at Wired. You will not believe what Poulsen does in this book. http://www.amazon.com/Watchman-Twisted-Crimes-Serial-Poulsen/dp/0316528579/ref=sr_1_6
The Hacker Crackdown by acclaimed sci fi author Bruce Sterling is a great work on an infamous cross-country bust of many hackers. You'll get a look into the BBS subculture, Phrack Magazine, and the phreaker scene. http://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic-Frontier/dp/055356370X/ref=sr_1_1?
And let's not forget gaming:
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture gives a great history of ID Software and the origins of the FPS: http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture-ebook/dp/B000FBFNL0/ref=sr_1_3
Thats it (according to Balmer, and Jack Sams who is the IBM exec that went to Digital Research to license it). IBM thought they could licence CP/M from microsoft. MS couldn't license CP/M and sent Jack to the Digital Research house. It was awkward. (Triumph of the Nerds Documentary episode 2 18 minutes in)
I too would highly recommend Trimuph of the Nerds Documentary (That Cringley Guy is involved in it). Lots of first hand accounts. Plus IBM Carols being sung!
Triumph of the Nerds has some first person accounts from Jack Sams of IBM and Bill Gates and Balmer (of the whole IBM/ Digital Research negotiation (or lack thereoff). Its in part 2 (11 minutes in).
Basically IBM wanting programming languages and an OS from Microsoft. MS didn't have an OS, so they sent IBM to Digital Research (Gary's Company). The deal to get CP/M fell through Microsoft said, we'll sell you (IBM) and OS too. Microsoft then bought the OS from a company across town. That os was basically adapted from CP/M (the author used the cp manual as a starting point)
Highly recommended (though the Gary Kildall bit is very short):
- A movie: Pirates of Silicon Valley (https://youtu.be/BI-nzUIYIX4)
- A documentary: Triumph of the Nerds (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLudrw8Z7-gFa7Is4YZitOF7-AfLl2u8IA)
- Not involving Gary Kildall, but about open source, gnu, and linux: Revolution OS: (https://youtu.be/fxjElWL8igo)
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" is such a great film. It's even funny and the true story is told in a nice way.
Cringely's "The Triumph of the Nerds" documentary is great too (which lead to the "Pirates of Silicon Valley" film).
The only other awesome documentary style film about the computer age (that I know of) is David Fincher's "The Social Network". Sony Pictures tried get David Fincher to direct a new "Steve Jobs" movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2080374/) based on a screenplay written by Aaron Sorkin (same team as "The Social Network") but then something went terrible wrong (http://variety.com/2014/film/news/leaked-sony-emails-reveal-nasty-exchanges-and-insults-1201375511/). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs_(film)
FWIW a lot of this history is covered in PBS's "Triumph of the Nerds" documentary without the dramatic license. Kudos to the producers for attempting to make BIOS reverse engineering look exciting, though.
Read this:
* Bill Gates's memoir/vision book, The Road Ahead (1995)
* Paul Allen's memoir book, Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft (2011)
Watch this:
* Pirates of Silicon Valley TV movie (funny but accurate, based on Triumph of the Nerds interviews)
* Triumph of the Nerds (TV docu, 1996, by R. Cringely)
* Nerds 2.0.1 (TV docu, 1998, by R. Cringely)
Here's a history lesson:
The change in gender ratios in our industry are very closely related to the rise of the mini-computer.
Back when only companies like IBM and their customers owned computers, there was a much more equal gender ratio. When the mini-computer came about, the bears took interest in mini-computers. There were male bears and female bears. Disruptive innovation also disrupted the gender ratio.
For example, here's a Google Image Search for Homebrew Computer Club:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Homebrew+Computer+Club&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=PemNVPfBHMbSoASQ74KQBw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1573&bih=952
As you can see from the group images, the ratio of men to women in the Homebrew Computer Club was much skewed in having more men than women than was observed in the computing industry at the time (mainframes and whatnot).
Go back and watch Triumph of the Nerds, narrated by Cringely and you'll see a completely different industry today. That documentary was created right at the beginning of tech becoming mainstream and money becoming the focus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBXbvl1Sg4#t=4m39s (watch about 5 minutes. the interview with Woz at 11m47s is worth a watch too)
Look at the people in that video. Not a fox in sight, male (brogrammers) or female. These are people who were pursing their interest in computing despite being at the bottom of the social ladder. Woz even describes the PDP-8 manual as a being like a bible. Show me anyone who would have been envious of this lifestyle back in the 80s and 90s and I'll show you someone that is a nerd through and through and probably oblivious to gender or possibly even the opposite sex.
I don't know about others here, but when I got involved with programming (~12 y.o.) in 94 or so, I was as alone as you could get. There were no other boys or girls. I had no role models. Neither of my parents were in tech. Prior to learning to program, I spend hours in my basement taking junk electronics apart that I found in the high school dumpster. None of my friends did this. When I decided I wanted to learn to program, I had to find out on my own about HS courses and courses at the local computer shop. I took a short visual basic course at the local computer shop (IIRC only 3 other people took the class with me) before I took a summer programming course at the local high school, where I was 12 years old and IIRC everyone else in the class was a sophomore or older and I don't even know what the gender ratio was in the class. It was irrelevant to me at the time. Unfortunately my relationship with programming took a 10+ hiatus when my family moved and I was no longer at a school that had support for programming when I first arrived and when AP computer science was added, the teacher was so bad that it killed my decision to go to school for CS (I went into physics instead).
Anyone who is a bear cub today, boy or girl, white or black, enjoys several orders of magnitude more privilege in becoming involved with computers and programming that I could ever have dreamed of growing up interested in computers in the mid-90s. If I could be the same precocious 12 y.o. as I was in the mid-90s but instead in 2014, I would jump at the opportunity. There are no no real barriers to getting involved in programming today relative to two decades ago. If someone is truly a bear, then their gender or race are a insignificant relative to the privilege of being able to involve yourself in programming in 2014, with the many resources out there to help you learn that didn't exist when I was a kid.
Foxes, male or female, only care about being included in tech now because there is a lot of money and job growth in this industry. No one was making a big deal about being included when being a nerd was socially undesirable.
Furthermore, it's worth nothing that some of the female bears now resent the female foxes because they have made their life worse [0].
[0] http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software
[1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/appendixb.html
Reminds me of the "Triumph of the Nerds" were Robert X. Cringely sings with Sam Albert (former IBM executive):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afACnAMG9iM
74. OUR I. B. M. SALESMEN Tune: "Jingle Bells"
1. I. B. M., Happy men, smiling all the way. Oh what fun it is to sell our products night and day. I. B. M., Watson men, partners of T. J. In his service to mankind-that’s why we are so gay.
(Sam Albert mentions: "Now gay didn't mean what it means today then, remember that")
-- http://www.digibarn.com/collections/songs/ibm-songs/index.html
And the following up TV movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" that features the IBM song too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YwJmb0N9GQ
That entire sequence (the song snippet, and the garter story) sounds familiar... I remember seeing it on Robert X. Cringely's "Triumph of the Nerds" on PBS (great documentary series, btw)
Because he wrote the best book ever written on the rise of the PC industry, Accidental Empires (http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554). And then turned it into a TV documentary miniseries, Triumph of the Nerds (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FXQO), which was best in class as well.
His book "Accidental Empires" (http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554), and the PBS documentary miniseries that was based on it, "Triumph of the Nerds" (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Nerds-Bob-Cringely/dp/B00006FXQO/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1401912503&sr=1-1&keywords=triumph+of+the+nerds), are both terrific, must-read/see histories of the dawning and maturity of the age of personal computing. The doc is especially fascinating now because it was made in the window of time after Steve Jobs' failure at NeXT, but before his triumphant return to Apple -- so it provides a glimpse of him humbled and circumspect, which is a very different tone than that he took in nearly every other public appearance ever.
Cringely's more recent work has been kind of hit or miss, though.
Gates is one of those rare people who is at a time a good developer, good manager and a cunning businessman. I started to appreciate him after watching Triumph of the Nerds documentary series. I literally loled for 5 minutes after watching Gates in an event parodying IBM which was organised by Jobs http://youtu.be/riyAe4BKAng?t=20m1s.
I would also recommend you to watch Triumph of the Nerds.
Anyone interested in the early days of personal computers should check out Triumph of the Nerds. It's many of the same people but interviewed 16 years ago. Awesome stuff.
First Episode on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFL9IyJ_qHk
Wikipedia Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds
Robert X. Cringely has two documentaries that cheered me up a lot: Triumph of the Nerds and Nerds 2.0.1. There's also Pirates of Silicon Valley.
There are also two movies documenting the creation of Linux and open source (I forget the names right now) that you might want to look into.
Triumph of the Nerds is inspirational and makes you feel like geeks can make something out of nothing.
Ken Burns' documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright makes you feel like you identify with a singular drive for vision above all else (The SC Johnson headquarters in Racine, WI are heavenly but the roof leaks buckets)
Not truly a documentary but "My Architect" is a moving journey by Louis Kahn's son to try to understand his father he never really knew through the works he left behind
http://www.pbs.org/flw/
http://www.myarchitectfilm.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
Every few months I enjoy rewatching the Cringely PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds, which lives forever right in that time.
He really has gone down hill since that great movie he had "Triumph of the nerds", was really interesting seeing the history of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates starting their companies. Probably one of the better things I've seen on PBS
You don't have to go out of your way to read biographies. In Jobs' Stanford commencement speech, discussed and linked many times here on HN, he talks about being "fired" from Apple. He also discusses it in Cringely's "Triumph of the Nerds" documentary. Given that Jobs himself publicly acknowledges that he was fired, I'd be interested to know what it is you read that claims otherwise.
In Triumph of the Nerds, a great feel-good movie for Internet startups, there is a nice time capsule vignette of the founders of Excite, when the company was just getting started.
In Bob Cringely's documentary. Joe Kraus and Graham (the other co-founder) are interviewed while working in someone's basement. They're sitting in near darkness, illuminated by the glow of multiple workstations. In this brief vignette, they both exude confidence. Joe Kraus, dressed in jeans, seems to be very entreprenurial charismatic. Graham reminds me of a young Bill Gates and demonstrates Architext's technology on Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Later, in the documentary, several months or a year later, Bob Cringley goes to visit the massive brand new, post-VC offices of excite.com. Graham and Joe lead Bob on a tour - and you can see that the founders are still very much the same people - humble but world-affecting ambitious.
Dont forget:
- Forbin project ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
- E-Money with Cringely ~ http://www.pbs.org/opb/electricmoney
- Nerds 2.0.1: with Cringely ~ http://www.pbs.org/opb/
- NerdTV: Cringely interviews ... ~ http://www.pbs.org/nerdtv/
- Doug Englebart Mother of all Demos ~ http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2005/06/doug_englebart_.html
- More Doug Englebart ~ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097
SEEN
- Startup.com: 9/10: How things get all messed up b/w friends in startups, 'lets get to work'.
- Revolution OS: 8/10: Nerdy interviews with the GNU, Linux & Free software movement. Worth it to see Bruce Perens hair & Eric Raymonds 'we are your worst nightmare' speech to an MS exec in a lift.
- Pirates of Silicon Valley ~ 8/10: Very funny take on Gates, Woz & Jobs http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122
- The Triumph of the Nerds ~ 7.5/10: Cringley doing his stuff with web1.0 startups. Great to see Joe Kraus with Excite ~ http://www.pbs.org/nerds
- Apollo 13; 7/10: Brings back memories of my childhood & Apollo missions. Not long after I got this on DVD I got to see Jack Schmitt talk (last man on the moon). Best bit was on how they handled the complexity.
- The Fog of War ~ 7/10: Robert McNamara, how smart people can get fooled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
- Walking with Dinosaurs: 7/10: Ok
- E-Dreams: 6.5/10: Dark, gritty and how did they get all that money?
- Project Aardvark ~ 6/10: Uneventful, nerdy guys building co-pilot ~ http://www.copilot.com/
The Triumph of the Nerds http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115398/
Revolution OS http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/
Startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/