Halt and Catch Fire

Happy New Year.

How's Tokyo?

Cameron: Good.

Cold.

Good. Good. Well, uh...

Is that her?

We got some first steps for the browser

that we want to walk you through so we can, uh, you know,

hit the ground running when you get back to town.

Gordon, I'm gonna be working on this project remotely.

I-I need to talk to Joe.

Just me.

Yeah. Okay.

Wants to talk to you.

Hello?

How you doing?

I don't understand.

I told Tom what happened.

And he and I, uh, we both agreed

that it would be best

if I worked on the browser remotely...

from here.

What time is it there?

They're 17 hours ahead,

so whatever time it is here...

Look, she doesn't need to be on the phone

for us to upload it to Gopher.

She wrote it. She needs to be available.

Guys, I need... I need...

Stop hammering!

Please!

You know it's midnight there.

This is the time she specified.

Maybe Godzilla's fighting Mothra again.

We're gonna try her again in 20 minutes.

Guys!

Guys, guys, please!

All right?

It's too early in the morning for this.

That is because nobody is downloading it at all.

No, you're right. Forgive me.

69 downloads last quarter. Is that better?

A year and we are barely a ripple in the pond.

Of course it has to do with the bugs.

I'm tracking them as fast as I can,

but you take forever to...

Okay.

Okay, fine.

That would be fine.

- How's Cameron? - Never available.

Or if we do somehow manage to get her on the phone,

she's busy or defensive or...

Stuck at 69 downloads.

Look, Joe, we're building

the core ISP business upstairs by the day,

which means we don't need overnight success

with the web browser.

But why do you keep putting yourself

through this with her?

This work is important.

That's not what I asked.

I'll make sure those bugs get fixed.

Shep, have you talked to Cameron?

Uh, Gordon, this is Mike Houseman

from America Online.

- Great to meet you, Gordon. - Yeah, likewise.

Yeah, I want to talk about acquiring your user base.

Is AOL really that afraid of the open Internet?

Well, it's either that

or we crush you when we expand west.

Ah, well, let me tell you something, Mike...

I need to show you something right now.

Mike, this is Joe MacMillan. He's our Web Services division.

Impressive. You're into the Web.

It's where everything's headed.

Gordon.

Excuse us.

It's called Mosaic.

All right, so there's another browser in the game.

We still got Nexus, Viola, Midas...

Don't forget Millennium, thanks to Donna.

Who's got just as much of a right to this idea as we do.

But those aren't this.

Inline images, Web forums support,

available on every platform.

If Cameron hadn't been radio silent for five months,

if she had fixed the bugs, helped us iterate...

I don't mind losing,

but we're not even gonna get a chance to compete.

Where the hell is Cameron?

Now we do our own chip.

Over here.

You all right?

Yeah.

Fine.

I bet it was her new game.

I'm sure she just got wrapped up in it,

forgot all about us.

What if we uncapped usage?

You know, unlimited access for every customer...

you know, no more hourly rates,

just a, you know, flat monthly fee?

That's a good idea, smart.

Look, I don't mean to harp on it,

but what galls me

is that she still owes us a final version.

We had a first-mover advantage.

Now Mosaic is the front door to the Web.

Mm.

Yeah, I heard they had a million downloads

in the first six months. Those numbers have to be inflated.

Meanwhile, Loadstar stands at a whopping 431.

Well, maybe that's okay.

But we can build a Mosaic-killer.

She couldn't do it.

We'll find someone who can.

Joe, how many times do you have to be right?

Maybe we should just be grateful or something.

I mean, this is technology

that we could only have dreamed of back in that garage.

You should've brought Ozzie.

I wouldn't have minded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What?

Nothing.

We broke up three weeks ago.

Oh, man.

Hey, Gordon...

happy 40th.

Cheers.

Try the corridor again.

We were just there, and all we found

was this rusty walking-stick thing.

Can you equip it?

"The stick particulates in your hand"?

Cool.

Dude, what?

This feels like homework.

Seriously, I'm getting cold just watching this.

Oh, good... another puzzle.

Good thing we haven't seen anybody in like 10 minutes.

You can't even kill anything.

Ah, shoot.

Ah.

Okay.

Wait. What the hell? We're back at the beginning?

This is bullshit.

Who are you?

Hi.

What's your favorite video game right now?

- Mortal Kombat. - Yeah, Mortal Kombat.

I prefer Street Fighter II

for the superior controls and graphics.

Okay. Thank you, guys, for coming in.

Here's your Pioneer Chicken gift certificates.

We appreciate your feedback.

Guys, this is not our target demographic.

We need to be going after higher GPAs,

readers with immersive fantasy and sci-fi interests.

This isn't a game you play. It's a game you live.

How many websites now?

561.

And I found a new one for you.

Look, if this is the one that translates your name

into Hawaiian, I already did it.

And?

Kolekona.

Hey, look at this one.

It's a, uh... It's a coffee pot.

That is a coffee pot

at he University of Cambridge, 5,000 miles away.

That's not a picture. That's a live video feed.

Well, it looks really alive.

It's... fascinating.

Listen.

Joe, I actually came down here

to chat with you about something.

Shoot.

Well, I was wondering if you'd consider moving upstairs.

Why?

Well, the Web Services division

hasn't originally grown the way we thought it would,