Memorable, crazy movie

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

First of all, this doc is from 1996. That being said: it chronicles the rise of the personal computer/home computer beginning in the 1970s with the Altair 8800, Apple II and VisiCalc. It continues through the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh revolution through the 1980s and the mid 1990s at the beginning of the Dot-com boom. The film ends before it all crashes in the late 1999s. But what the heck.

Highly stereotypical and very offensive to anyone with a computer programming background. Apparently in the 90's it was socially acceptable to make sexist remarks and wildly speculative accusations about anyone even remotely tech savvy. This documentary enforces every false negative stereotype I've ever heard and mocks the very so called nerds that it praises, while demeaning "their way of life" and casting them as "weird social rejects." The narrator himself talks as though he is examining some alien race from another planet, and comments on just how abnormal and socially repugnant their lifestyles are. A few obligatorily pretentious comments from Steve Jobs of course made the cut as well.

Cringly does an excellent job of keeping one interested with humorous anecdotes and trivia. It must have been quite a task getting these innovators on camera. Cringly should come up with an update. It will be interesting to see his take on Netscape, Napster and scam IPOs.

Journalist Robert Cringley's 3-hour saga of the personal computer is a sprawling, gutsy masterpiece that tells it like it is, presenting for viewer approval(or disapproval)the characters, places and anecdotes that are part of the birth, growing pains and refinement of "that damn box", as some folks might call it. It's all there: software, hardware, geeks, nerds, money, power, ambition, hunger, anxiety. Highly recommended viewing, without a doubt.