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"Halt and Catch Fire" on AMC

CanadaPhil

Experienced Member
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Oct 4, 2014
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Location
Toronto
Just an fyi for Commodore fans..

Season 2 of "Halt and Catch Fire" on AMC returned recently (Ep. 2 aired this past Sunday), and Commodore computers feature heavily in this season's storyline.
 
The resident Commodore fan I know went completely ballistic about, well, pretty much everything they showed on the screen... but yeah, Commodores. ;)
 
Enjoy! Wasn't involved in the script or anything, but all the computers came from my user group, MARCH (Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists).
 
Cool, I may have to start watching again. I caught the first 4 or 5 episodes of season 1, but it didn't hook me like I hoped. Maybe the addition of some Commodore goodness can change that.
 
Enjoy! Wasn't involved in the script or anything, but all the computers came from my user group, MARCH (Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists).

Hah!

Cool. I had just assumed the showrunners went nutz on Ebay.
:)
 
Hah!

Cool. I had just assumed the showrunners went nutz on Ebay.
:)

Nope. They contacted us a couple of years ago. At first they wanted us to load up a vehicle and drive everything from our museum in NJ to the set 850 miles away. We said no thanks. :) Fortunately they realized that FedEx exists.
 
That is amazing that there is a small connection to HACF with members of this forum!

Its great to see that the show is now acknowledging Commodore in some small way in this season's plotline. Oh course its all fictional, but I sort of equate the startup depicted in Season 2 as something akin to "QuantumLink". Maybe QLink will get a mention in later shows?

So happy that AMC gave HACF a second chance and renewed it last year.
:)
 
That is amazing that there is a small connection to HACF with members of this forum!

Its great to see that the show is now acknowledging Commodore in some small way in this season's plotline. Oh course its all fictional, but I sort of equate the startup depicted in Season 2 as something akin to "QuantumLink". Maybe QLink will get a mention in later shows?

So happy that AMC gave HACF a second chance and renewed it last year.
:)

We also supplied (most of) the computers for "The Americans".

Word gets around in the film industry.
 
Cool, I may have to start watching again. I caught the first 4 or 5 episodes of season 1, but it didn't hook me like I hoped. Maybe the addition of some Commodore goodness can change that.

I would highly recommend you give Season 1 another shot from the beginning again BEFORE trying Season 2.

S1 was a slow burn, but around Ep. 7, it all starts to gel. Ep. 8 was fan favourite, and 9 and 10 knock it out of the park. The season ended very strong.

S2 takes place 18 months later in time, with a different plotline as the principals have gone on differing paths, but I feel it still requires knowing all their backstories.
 
The resident Commodore fan I know went completely ballistic about, well, pretty much everything they showed on the screen... but yeah, Commodores. ;)

Speaking as a Commodore fan, it wasn't as bad as I feared. Some of it looked like an attempt to have an Apple II and Commodore 64 furtively breed in the bushes, but the colour palette was right and the font was pretty close. What threw it was him programming in C ... and ANSI C, at that.
 
....What threw it was him programming in C ... and ANSI C, at that.

Well, they have to take some artistic license. Its a fictional TV show! :)

I have seen many posts (in other forums) from people not even alive then that don't even believe that a C64 could do ANYTHING online!, so I am just happy that in 2015, a TV show depicting computing in the 80's even exists! :)

Hey...And to be fair though, didn't Abacus make a C package for the C64 in 1985?
 
How did that work, did they buy them or are they just on loan?

Generally speaking, we rent or sell. It depends on many factors such as what's needed, how much we have, when it's needed, where it's located, does it need to work or just look pretty, size of the production, etc. ... Some items are strictly off-limits regardless of money on the table because of rarity/value.

We'd only ever "loan" an artifact if it was for a non-profit, Ph.D. researcher, PBS documentary, or something along those lines.

I can't discuss details of any specific deal.
 
Hey...And to be fair though, didn't Abacus make a C package for the C64 in 1985?

Yes, I believe Abacus had Super C for the C64, never tried it though.
I have a copy of PowerC from Spinnaker on C64, which actually works on a stock C64 with one drive (although two are recommended): http://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/powerc.html
It's certainly not ANSI C though, more like some early K&R flavour, but still.
I'm not sure how old it is exactly, but mid-80s would probably be the ballpark.

But I guess most people would actually have used cross-compilers for 6502 systems instead, in those days, because C64 is brutally limited as a compiler environment.
Of course, most software for C64 was written in assembly anyway, but still... It is somewhat plausible that someone actually did write C on a C64 in the 80s :)
 
Generally speaking, we rent or sell. It depends on many factors such as what's needed, how much we have, when it's needed, where it's located, does it need to work or just look pretty, size of the production, etc. ... Some items are strictly off-limits regardless of money on the table because of rarity/value.

We'd only ever "loan" an artifact if it was for a non-profit, Ph.D. researcher, PBS documentary, or something along those lines.

I can't discuss details of any specific deal.

Ok good to know. I think it's great they've chosen to use Commodores and I like what they've done with the story by skipping forward in time from last season.
 
I think using Commodores was essential to creating an alternate version of PlayNET/ Q-Link, which were C64-centric online gaming and chat services. Since they were C64 specific, they could provide better sound and graphics a standard BBS could offer. Most of the graphics and screens were loaded through the program floppy to reduce how much data was required to be transmitted over the phone lines.

Regarding the supplying of props, I haven't noticed any modems connected to any pc's. Weren't there any available to loan, or were they forgotten by the prop masters? Other than that, I noticed a shortage of data and power cables on floppy drives. No big deal, though. I doubt the average viewer notices that stuff.

Regarding the time jump, learning what all happened to each character in the 20 months between seasons is part of the mystery.
 
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