For people who are interested in this era, Halt and Catch Fire is a terrific portrayal of the sorts of characters and battles that defined it, albeit from more of a startup perspective.
The second season seems to become the typical personal drama / relationship / betrayal / writers kung-fu story arch / etc. that every series comprising more than one season seems to spiral into these days.
So, highly recommend the first season!
The character of Cameron was highly inspired by Romero. In fact, the book Masters of Doom is kind of a blueprint for the show in some ways
Thanks for the reminder to rewatch it. I really need that show now.
So bad I couldn't finish the series.
and what fiction have you ever written?
I lived through that era, too. As historical fiction, HACF is pretty decent. "areas unrelated" -- hello, it's FICTION about a specific era, and, without knowing what specifically you're talking about: maybe those "unrelated" areas are period-setting, or character-developing.
HACF not for you. Let's leave it at that. You can't please everyone.
The "history" the show goes over is crammed into it's Drama first story. The history is there for nostalgia bait, not to celebrate the history or educate. That's why pretty much everything interesting that happened in computing was mangled into coming from the same like 5 people.
And the characters are all just narcissistic assholes who are self destructive because it means the show gets to carry on for another season. It also has the cliche density to feel like a high schooler's homework project.
If you find yourself addicted to reality TV drama, you will enjoy it.
Imagine if you tried to take "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" seriously, and also were watching it because you cared about Philadelphia history. I felt actively patronized the whole time.
Season 2, though, I couldn't watch.
I didn't find it a perfect show--especially latterly--but it captured a lot of the era, such as COMDEX, pretty well.