Nowadays a PC is an absolute standard in the house. But there were actually times, you hardly remember it when that was not the case. And it's exactly where, in the early 1980s, that the IT series "Halt and Catch Fire" moves us. The revival series of a different kind tells us the story of the computer boom from the perspective of three developer geniuses who are constantly teasing everywhere, but give everything for their big dream: The development of a new personal computer! Not only suitable for nerds, although the title refers to a PC keyboard shortcut that can be used to render a computer inoperative ...
And so the US series "Halt and Catch Fire", which was produced in 2014 by the "Breaking Bad" producers Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein and by the AMC studios, takes us into the year after which IBM presented the PC's has taken on a pioneering role. Ambitious visionary and ex-IBM employee Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace, "The Hobbit", "Lincoln") dares to attack the growing IBM monopoly at Cardiff Electric by developing his own PC. At his side is the characteristically torn Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy, "12 Years a Slave", Argo "), an engineer who also dreams of new revolutionary breakthroughs after which one of his developments in the past has failed.
However, Clark's ambitious ambition repeatedly leads to considerable tension in his marriage to his wife Donna (Kerry Bishé, "Sex and the City. The film", "Grand Piano"), who thinks that his work is more important to him than his family , Joe also turns to the young 22-year-old high-flyer Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis, "Forever single?", "Breathe In"), who is jeopardizing her entire future by dropping out to study Joe's company as a programmer. Her boss at Cardiff Electric is John Bosworth (Toby Huss, "Rescue Dawn", "Cowboys & Aliens"), an old-school businessman who has been trying to get the company into the local market for the past 22 years. As a result, he and Joe have very different views on the future of the company from company founder Nathan Cardiff (Graham Beckel, "Brokeback Mountain", "L.A. Confidential"), who largely refrains from operating. As a result, greed and pride threaten the personal and professional relationships of the three while they try to realize their dream of having their own PC, which has long since become a reality. And at the same time it is still necessary to master the "real" life ...