AMC, perhaps best known for shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead, has a new show about to hit the small screen. Halt and Catch Fire is a very loose adaptation of the founding of Compaq Computer, the first company to truly reverse engineer the IBM PC.
The pilot is available online and premieres this weekend.
But this post is really about the true story of a daring group of Texas Instruments employees who decided to take on IBM, at the time a hulking corporate behemoth that was as big a player as there was in the fledgling tech universe, with the hottest product as well.
Follow the link and you can listen to the story, told by Brian McCullough on the excellent Internet History Podcast, or read through the narrative, if that’s more your thing. An exciting tale, well told.
Was Compaq really the first with a PC compatible? Wikipedia on Compaq: “In November 1982 Compaq announced their first product…” but here’s Wikipedia on Columbia Computer: “CDP introduced the MPC 1600 “Multi Personal Computer” in June 1982.” So actually Columbia was first with a PC compatible. But memory fades and Compaq became huge while Columbia faded away. Even that Wikipedia article on Compaq says that Compaq was first, contrary to Wikipedia’s own information.
I could be wrong, but I believe Compaq was the first to truly reverse engineer the PC, ROMs and all. Again, not certain of this, but I believe Columbia’s effort led to a system that could run many PC programs, but not all, while Compaq built something that was truly compatible, down to the boot ROMs.