Bluebeard as a Geek: Plundering in High-Tech: On ‘Halt and Catch Fire,’ It’s Imitation vs. Invention; New York Times, 5/30/14

Alessandra Stanley, New York Times; Bluebeard as a Geek: Plundering in High-Tech: On ‘Halt and Catch Fire,’ It’s Imitation vs. Invention:

"There are absolutists who still believe that everything on the Internet should be free and see themselves as partisans, not parasites. Their motto might as well be “intellectual property is theft.”

Some of those true believers may enjoy a new AMC drama, “Halt and Catch Fire,” which begins on Sunday and is set in Texas in the early 1980s, when PCs were still in their infancy, and IBM dominated the industry.

But it’s an odd show for most viewers to accept at face value. And not just because it’s hard to construct thrilling action sequences out of microchips, floppy disks and coffee breaks. In today’s era of high-tech billionaires and the cult of the start-up, this series goes back in time to glorify imitation, not innovation...

Even the title is so abstruse that an explanation is spelled out in block print at the beginning:

“HALT AND CATCH FIRE (HCF): An early computer command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once. Control of the computer could not be regained.”...

Buccaneering on the high seas, the kind that involves daggers, planks and rum, is romantic partly because it remains safely in the past. Copyright piracy, on the other hand, may be too close for comfort."