I don’t know if AMC’s “Halt And Catch Fire” is a very good show, but I can tell you that I watched every episode last season.
Highly influenced by “Mad Men” (but nowhere near as clever or popular), the first season of “Halt” sort of told the early-1980s story of how a trio of Texas Instruments vets cloned an IBM PC and became a giant by marketing some of the first portable personal computers under the name Compaq.
The second season of “Halt,” even though it takes place in 1985, deals with personal computers starting to link up with each other via something called The Internet.
Yes, the ‘80s Internet. The World Wide Web didn’t come into being until the early 1990s, but before 1990 I remember hooking my “portable” 1984 Kaypro 2 word processor to my phone and text-chatting with fellow screenwriters via something set up by the West Coast arm of the Writers Guild of America in Los Angeles. Not long after that I was able to hook to the “real” Internet and start exchanging posts on Usenet with thousands of others.
Season two launches a week from Sunday and Deadline has an exclusive (for the moment) 30-second promo here.
The Prequel To GAME OF THRONES!! $21.78 Hardback!! $11.99 Kindle!!
