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5. Similar - While COMPAQ itself never claimed 100% BIOS compatibility with IBM, they were acknowledged the best by the industry.
 
5. Similar - While COMPAQ itself never claimed 100% BIOS compatibility with IBM, they were acknowledged the best by the industry.
   
  +
6. Similar - COMPAQ utilized a "dirty" team writing BIOS Specs after viewing IBM PC source code, that the "clean" team would turn into legal code.<ref>What our lawyers told us was that, not only can you not use it [the copyrighted code] anybody that’s even looked at it–glanced at it–could taint the whole project. (…) We had two software people. One guy read the code and generated the functional specifications. So, it was like, reading hieroglyphics. Figuring out what it does, then writing the specification for what it does. Then, once he’s got that specification completed, he sort of hands it through a doorway or a window to another person who’s never seen IBM’s code, and he takes that spec and starts from scratch and writes our own code to be able to do the exact same function. Rod Canion interview, ibid.</ref>
6. Similar - COMPAQ utilized a "dirty" team writing BIOS Specs after viewing IBM PC source code, that the "clean" team would turn into legal code.
 
   
 
7. Different - IBM published both the Source code and the Schematics of its PC - creating a vast third party hardware / software aftermarket.
 
7. Different - IBM published both the Source code and the Schematics of its PC - creating a vast third party hardware / software aftermarket.

Revision as of 02:47, 26 June 2014

Cardiff Electric is a fictional company on the AMC show Halt and Catch Fire. It is located in Texas during the early 1980s. John Bosworth, senior Vice President when the show begins, states in one of the first two episodes that he has been with the company for 22 years. That means the company has been around since at least the early 1960s. Nathan Cardiff founded the company. He is still in a leadership role in the early 1980s setting of the show. However, John Bosworth is handling a lot of the personnel matters, the company finances, and the day-to-day operations.

It is clear in the first episode of Halt and Catch Fire, I/O, that John Bosworth and Nathan Cardiff have an old-school approach to business. When the company begins to lose business accounts rapidly in the second episode of Halt and Catch Fire, FUD, John Bosworth doesn't want a younger employee's approach because he says it's all about maintaining established relationships.

Prior to John Bosworth hiring a new employee, Joe MacMillan, the company was selling computer software. This is seen in the first episode, I/O, when Joe MacMillan and Gordon Clark meet with some executives to try to sell them Cardiff Electric products.

Joe MacMillan has a vision to enter the company in the PC race and forces this to happen when he convinces Gordon Clark to help him reverse engineer an IBM personal computer. This is actually illegal unless an outsider with no prior knowledge of Cardiff Electric PC reverse engineering works in a controlled environment away from the engineer who was already working for Cardiff Electric. Joe MacMillan recruits Cameron Howe, a college student, to be the engineer with no prior knowledge who will work in the "controlled environment." Joe MacMillan reveals in the first episode, I/O, that he notified IBM about he and Gordon Clark reverse engineering the IBM personal computer. This causes collaborative efforts between John Bosworth, Gordon Clark, Joe MacMillan, the attorney for Cardiff Electric, and the other employees to "keep their story straight" as IBM executives and IBM attorneys interview them.

Cardiff Electric passes the initial test with IBM in the second episode, FUD. IBM leaves, but soon recruits companies holding business accounts with Cardiff Electric and employees at Cardiff Electric. Joe MacMillan calls this "being raided" in FUD. He tries to help, but John Bosworth wants to handle the situation with old-school business approaches. In addition, John Bosworth and Nathan Cardiff view Joe MacMillan as a threat and take his way of forcing them in to the PC race personally. In FUD, John Bosworth blames Joe MacMillan for endangering the company and tells him he will cost people jobs.

Only a few episodes have aired at present. It is unclear what the future of Cardiff Electric will be. However, Joe MacMillan, Gordon Clark, and Cameron Howe all returned to work after a fight the night before ready to work on Joe's newest idea of developing a portable computer which would have been revolutionary in the early 1980s setting of Halt and Catch Fire.


Halt and Catch Fire - Fact or Fiction?

Compaq-founders

Compaq founders Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto with the Flagship Product

Actually it did happen and it WAS revolutionary - Osborne, Kaypro, Otrona, Dynalogic Hyperion were all in the "luggable" [1] market, but only COMPAQ survived because the others often failed to reliably run certain IBM PC software / hardware because they were proprietary designs implementing a subset of the IBM PC.[2]

Dallas based Cardiff Electric closely resembles the emergence (and timing) of COMPAQ Computer corporation. I expect the producers of HACF went to extreme lengths to prevent the obvious connection from being the subject of a lawsuit, but the facts remain:

1. Similar - Both Companies are Texas Based

2. Different but Similar - Both rely on Big-Business management experience and hire best-of-breed. Cardiff vision comes from ex-IBMer Joe, while COMPAQ founders were formerly from Texas Instruments. In a bit of tongue-in-cheek irony, Gordon's wife Donna is even a Digital Engineer at Texas Instruments!

3. Different - Cardiff is already an IBM competitor - COMPAQ a startup, whose product was sketched on a napkin at a Pancake House.[3]

4. Similar - Both Cardiff / COMPAQ produced a portable (called "Lugable" at the time) IBM Compatible computer.

Napkins-compaq-100272993-orig

Napkin containing design for the first COMPAQ

5. Similar - While COMPAQ itself never claimed 100% BIOS compatibility with IBM, they were acknowledged the best by the industry.

6. Similar - COMPAQ utilized a "dirty" team writing BIOS Specs after viewing IBM PC source code, that the "clean" team would turn into legal code.[4]

7. Different - IBM published both the Source code and the Schematics of its PC - creating a vast third party hardware / software aftermarket.

8. Similar - But this caused competitors no end of extra cost and complexity maintaining a "clean" team of coders who in no way could have seen the easily available "IBM Technical Reference Manual"

9. Similar - The teams of IBM auditors and lawyers descending on competitors, threatening, insisting on the double blind (dirty/clean) development - very real.

References and Citations

  1. There is NO WAY one can call these monsters "Laptops"! They were referred to as luggable and some hardy souls did indeed use them as we use laptops today!
  2. The Incredible True Story Behind AMC’s Halt And Catch Fire – How Compaq Cloned IBM And Created An Empire, by Brian McCullough — May 26, 2014, The Internet History Podcast, Chapter 2, Episode 7 - containing excepts and an unedited audio interview with COMPAQ Co-Founder and CEO, Rod Canion. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2014/05/the-incredible-true-story-behind-amcs-halt-and-catch-fire-how-compaq-cloned-ibm-and-created-an-empire/
  3. "From Its Beginnings on a Napkin, Compaq Did Nothing but Succeed" by Ruth Rendon. August 5 1988, Associated Press, as reported in the Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-05/business/fi-8300_1_compaq-portable Retrieved 25 JUN 2014
  4. What our lawyers told us was that, not only can you not use it [the copyrighted code] anybody that’s even looked at it–glanced at it–could taint the whole project. (…) We had two software people. One guy read the code and generated the functional specifications. So, it was like, reading hieroglyphics. Figuring out what it does, then writing the specification for what it does. Then, once he’s got that specification completed, he sort of hands it through a doorway or a window to another person who’s never seen IBM’s code, and he takes that spec and starts from scratch and writes our own code to be able to do the exact same function. Rod Canion interview, ibid.