“Following an early morning status check of their vintage electronic equipment, two computer engineers “throw down” in an awkward dance-off that innacurately echoes the development of information technolgy and the internet from 1951 up to the present day. The film features a catchy jingle by pop impresario Jim Guthrie.
*: The point at which a given species cedes planetary control to robots or machines.
Production notes: This film was produced by Superbrothers in 2006 before the establishment of Superbrothers Inc., but it was not until after incorporation that the film was eventually released. Critical reception of the film was positive, although most felt that the aim of the film was less lofty than its acclaimed predecessor THE CHILDREN OF THE CLONE, and that its creators had gone soft, already drifting from their revolutionary roots.
Interestingly, the film caught the attention of a number of internet web logs, leading to criticism by the notoriously tech savvy internet web log users, who responded harshly to home viewings of the film with comments like these: “Lame. Stupid. Fail. The depiction of Computer Systems of each period are so innacurate as to be totally misleading.” or worse, “Lame on SOOOO many levels. Not even deinterlaced properly, which is amazing considering it’s trying to look 8-bit. I was wondering how this crap got voted up, then saw, of course, Mr.BabyMan’s fan army voted it up”.
- Vimeo
Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)
“Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 made-for-television film directed by Martyn Burke and based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. The film documents the impact on the development of the personal computer of the rivalry between Apple Computer and Microsoft. It spans the time period of the early 1970s to 1997, when Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) and Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) develop a partnership after Jobs returns to Apple Computer. It aired on Turner Network Television on April 6 & 7, 1999.”
Netscape Mozilla Documentary 1998 - 2000 ProJect Code Rush - creative common licence (by znoopy2k)
A documentary on Netscape, Mozilla, programmers and the dot-com era. Interesting stuff; and on a personal note: as much as they make being a programmer sound quite depressing, it does make me want to code.
Then again, this film is 10 years old… Who knows what the life of a programmer is like now.
“Download: The True Story of the Internet is documentary television series about Internet history. It is aired on Science Channel at US and Discovery Channel for other countries. It originally aired on March 3, 2008. The show was hosted by John Heilemann.
There are 4 parts to the documentary. These are
Part 1: Browser Wars
The rise and fall of Netscape and its battle against Microsoft
Part 2: Search
The rise of Google and Yahoo
Part 3: Bubble
The dot.com crash of 2000 and the mainstays of the internet — Amazon.com and Ebay
Part 4: People Power
Peer to peer technology, web2.0, and social networking”
“ReBoot is a Canadian CGI-animated action-adventure cartoon series that originally aired from 1994 to 2001. It was produced by Vancouver-based production company Mainframe Entertainment, Alliance Communications, BLT Productions and created by Gavin Blair, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell and John Grace, with the visuals designed by Brendan McCarthy after an initial attempt by Ian Gibson.
It was the first half-hour, completely computer-animated TV series. Reruns of the first three seasons can be seen in Canada on Teletoon Retro, and the first two seasons are available on Netflix’s streaming service in the US.”
