Halt and Catch Fire

Cleanup is still under way in both Galveston and Houston

due to the damage caused by Hurricane Alicia last week.

With storm costs projected into the billions,

1983 is shaping up to be

the costliest hurricane season in Texas history.

The death toll currently stands at 21

with reports of hundreds injured.

The Red Cross...

What are you doing?

- Come play with me. - Play with yourself. I gotta work.

- You gotta work. - Joe...

I can't look at code right now. Come.

It's not as much fun to beat the computer.

- I want to beat you. - Why?

It's just better when you know your enemy.

- Love your enemy. - Please.

Racing, huh? Easy win.

We'll see.

- Uh-oh. - Mm-mm.

Oh, oh, oh!

Joe, that's cheating!

Victory.

Okay, rematch.

Come on.

Oh, you can't do it, can you?

You can't just sit and play for five minutes.

I'm sorry, I can't. Not right now.

We gotta keep working on the Giant's new OS.

COMDEX is closer than we think. We gotta be ready.

We will be.

Come on, one more game, please?

Don't play all day.

- Good morning, good morning. - Good morning.

Hey! Hey, hey, you're getting that shit everywhere, man.

Uh, pardon our dust, but expand we must.

- What's going on? - We're running out of room for cables.

We're stuffing them anywhere we can.

- Morning! - Including the walls.

Good, great idea.

This guy just opened with F3.

Why is everyone bad at chess?

- Chess is hard. - I'm hard.

- Um, Parallax just crashed again. - Oh, God. Find out why.

- Lev, how's our speed? - The networks are lagging like a bitch.

- Lots of fritzing out from overload. - Weird.

- Heads up! - I feel like the new phone lines

we installed should be able to handle the volume.

No, there's still delay and drop.

Okay, who put Stormtrooper in microwave?

Oh, Arki, I need the aux LAN online by noon, okay?

- No problem. - Oh, God, this is gross.

- Hey, Lev, can we check the wiring? - Yeah, sure.

I'm redirecting users over to Tank Battle

while we reload Parallax.

Give me about 15 minutes.

Getting this thing live again is like launching a yacht.

Can someone please deactivate the top menu item?

I don't want users blowing the system trying to enter a game that isn't there.

I'm blowing the system.

Oh, shit.

What? What is it?

Dude!

Went through a stud.

Great, there goes our security deposit.

We said good-bye to that a long time ago, boys.

Mutiny support.

Hi, my name is Chet Jensen, user handle KickAssasaurus.

I'd like to report a programming error in Parallax.

The narrow hall with a bunch of mirrors has no door.

- No, not mirrors, holograms. - Oh, flummoxing.

But if I say, "Look at hologram,"

it just says, "You see an object, but it isn't real."

- Okay, can you touch it? - Hmm, no.

It says, "You put your hand into the light, but cannot grasp it."

- And there's no way out. - Okay, well, think about it.

If you can put your hand in the hologram, what does that mean?

I mean, you have to think about the physical space of the room, you know?

And remember, the android sorcerer

is brilliant and cunning.

- Yeah. - Guys! Hey, Frosty.

- Don't strip any more screws, okay? - Gotta make 'em tight, real tight.

Oh, my God, we have got to rewire this.

We can't build the cabinets fast enough. Wiring's an afterthought.

Wait just a darn minute.

- Can I walk through the hologram? - Maybe.

Holy cow! Whoever came up with that is brilliant.

Thank you. I came up with it.

- You're the creator of Parallax? - Network problem... serious lag.

That's good, we're popular.

No, I don't know that the server host can handle the strain,

or even if the modem bank can stay up with the load.

- Then screw backgammon! - Thank you.

Hey, hey, hey! What is going on?!

You guys, cut it out.

Parallax keeps crashing because his version of backgammon is too big.

- No frickin' way! - Well, how big is it?

- Over 500K. - Why does backgammon have to be half a meg?

It's a square with some circles and some triangles.

- It could be all the colors. - Color is good.

Hello! Our games have to run on phone lines,

not on a plastic cartridge with a crap ton of memory.

Yeah, and that's why they keep sucking.

Look, nothing sucks, okay?

Parallax crashes all the time.

Because you installed a big-ass version of backgammon.

Okay, look, backgammon cannot be the only reason that we're having problems,

but until we figure it out,

Yo-Yo, just recode it and make it grayscale, okay?

What? No way!

What was that about?

I think we should unplug the cabinets.

Figure out a better power solution.

Maybe rewiring everything more carefully will help with the lag.

You mean take the network offline?

- Yeah, for a couple hours. - We can't do that.

We're already getting complaints about the outages.

It's only gonna get slower if we don't figure out what's wrong.

Donna, no.

- Whatcha playing? - Another fat-ass game with color.

We blew a breaker, didn't we?

We didn't blow the breaker.

I think we blew the whole block.

Going.

Does your work have you feeling small and insignificant?

Is it as boring as a hand full of beans?

Add adventure to your life.

Climb that ladder and discover the Giant

from Cardiff Electric.

- Personal, portable, affordable. - Wow.

And now introducing the Giant's golden egg,

the Giant Professional.

Up to three times faster than the IBM XT.

And with better graphical capability

than the Apple Macintosh, the Giant Pro puts your business

at the top of the stalk.

Good morning, I'm Chip Rowlett with "DFW Moneyline,"

and I'm joined by Gordon Clark,

current president of Dallas mainstay firm Cardiff Electric.

Gordon, thanks so much for being with us today.

Ahem, thanks for having me, Chip.

So what we just saw was the latest national spot

for two computers designed over the last two years by Cardiff Electric.

Uh, yes, and, uh, that was a lot of fun to do...

But personal computing is only the latest chapter in Cardiff's history.

In fact, you yourself were instrumental in the change

- to the business model, weren't you? - Uh, yes.

- Yes, I was... - But now Cardiff is closing up shop?

Uh, well, not closing exactly.

I guess we didn't expect so much success so quickly.

We've been acquired by a large overseas company.

- Hey, could... - But you will stay on

- as president, then? - Hi, could you...

- could you just could you tell him... - Actually...

I think... I think it's time for me to move on.

I need to go to the power company.

- I need to leave. - Oh, so, sayonara, 9:00 to 5:00, huh?

Uh, I've given serious thought

to starting my own investment firm out of my garage.

Interesting. Um, why the garage?

- Uh, because, Chip, uh... - Uh-huh.

Good ideas don't come out of a boardroom, do they?

- Very good. - That was good.

- Gotta go. - Well, Gordon, again,

thanks so much for being with us.

We've got a lot more to talk about in the world of business,

and we'll do that when we come back right after this.

- Thanks. Thank you. - Thanks, Gordon. Good job.

Okay, we're back in two, guys.

Let's go.

Hello?

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good news.

Thank you.

- Who was that? - My attorney.

The sale went through.

- Really? - They're giving me my share.

That's fantastic, Joe.

I gotta go up and pick it up tomorrow.

This is good.

You earned this.

You deserve it.

Don't doubt that for a second.

Just going back there... - Seeing those people... - I know.

You want me to cancel tonight?

We don't have to have all these people over.

- No. - We can just talk it through.

No, it's a good distraction.

- Yeah? - Okay.

Ten miles.

I can tell.

Okay, so I am male.

Uh, I am in entertainment.

Um, a singer sometimes, right?

- Uh, I'm dead. - Well, allegedly you're dead.

Oh, allegedly.

Okay. Damn it.

Um, okay, let me think.

Uh, I am, uh... Oh, oh, what's his name?

From "Taxi," Andy Kaufman?