Tech Wizard Movies

Any good tech wizard movies you guys/gals recommend? Movies about the rise of or people in technology. For example like "Pirates of Silicon Valley."

btw.....anyone know what happened to the Masters of Doom movie last confirmed in 2005?

Are you looking for biographical\historical stuff, or are you allowing fiction as well? In the case of the latter, Hackers and Antitrust get my votes.

Hackers is about as unrealistic as it gets, but it's damn fun in a way that encapsulates the ideal phreaker\hacker culture.

Antitrust is more realistic on a espionage\evil corporation level, with an antagonist that is a not-so-subtle jab at Gates.

I haven't heard anything new about the Masters movie, though I'm highly curious to see who's going to be chosen to play the id guys.

On a side note, The Hacker Crackdown (Bruce Sterling) is an awesomely written account of phone systems, the beginnings of D\ARPA, phreakers, and the ATnT crashes. It's freely available in ebook form.

Revolution OS

There are many but most escape me right now and i wish i could also remember some of where i found them. before youtube i had a few sights bookmarked but for the life of me i cannot remember where i had seen these. some involve the underworld of it too like mini bios of some original hackers like mark abene (phiber optik) and some famous like robert morris, vladimir levin and of course kevin mitnick. there were alot on the early linux culture that were very interesting as well. im just going to have to go diggin and hope something comes up or some one here has some knowledge of them.

leileilol said:

Revolution OS

Is that any good? It just looked like silly fanboy wankery to me.

On the topic of fictional works, "Sneakers" is a much overlooked, delightful little "tech" thriller about cryptography (sort of; it never gets very technical, and some of it -- as usual -- isn't accurate).

Concerning Pirates of Silicon Valley...

At the end of the movie, Gates says, "We both had this rich neighbor, Xerox, that left the door open all the time and you go sneaking in to steal a TV set, but only when you get there do you realize that I got there first! I got the loot Steve!....."

What does that mean? I thought Steve was the first one to see the Xerox prototypes with GUI and mouse. Was Bill even there?

Skeletor said:

At the end of the movie, Gates says, "We both had this rich neighbor, Xerox, that left the door open all the time and you go sneaking in to steal a TV set, but only when you get there do you realize that I got there first! I got the loot Steve!....."

What does that mean? I thought Steve was the first one to see the Xerox prototypes with GUI and mouse. Was Bill even there?

Bill is saying that Microsoft hasn't stolen anything from Apple, but rather has simply done the same thing that Apple did (taken the GUI concept from Xerox).

His "I got there first" statement is probably referring to the fact that Bill was creating his Windows GUI while the Mac was still in development, something Steve wasn't expecting.

Two good documentaries you should see: "Triumph Of The Nerds", and "Nerds 2.0.1" by Robert X. Cringely.

Skeletor said:

Concerning Pirates of Silicon Valley...

Also, keep in mind that this film is *not* an accurate portrayl of events, many things were changed for dramatic effect. See Triumph Of The Nerds for the proper story, or read one of the books on the subject (Fire In The Valley, Accidental Empires).

My computer maintenance teacher was obsessed with that movie. He was such a Microsoft fanboy it's not even funny. The part with Steve Jobs taking acid was the best. That completely explains the old iMacs. Why did they come in so many colors?

From a marketing standpoint, those iMacs were far more appealing to your average joe than yet another beige box. Simply from a marketing standpoint :P