No idea what you are talking about. 😀

I follow the show and must say that I enjoyed watching it (the first season).
Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to say how it would have performed in the marketplace.

It all comes down to what the actual retail price of the Giant would have been and how eager the market was back then for a portable computer (bear in mind, it weighed almost 13 kg).
I think the Giant could probably have done well (provided a good marketing campaign).

However, considering that the Compaq portable only sold 53000 units in its first year, and they had other products as well, the question is whether the Giant would have made enough money to be profitable enough for Cardiff to spend on other R&D projects.

jesolo wrote:

I follow the show and must say that I enjoyed watching it (the first season). Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to say how it […]
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I follow the show and must say that I enjoyed watching it (the first season).
Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to say how it would have performed in the marketplace.

It all comes down to what the actual retail price of the Giant would have been and how eager the market was back then for a portable computer (bear in mind, it weighed almost 13 kg).
I think the Giant could probably have done well (provided a good marketing campaign).

However, considering that the Compaq portable only sold 53000 units in its first year, and they had other products as well, the question is whether the Giant would have made enough money to be profitable enough for Cardiff to spend on other R&D projects.

You make good points. Joe MacMillan in the first episodes challenges Gordon for twice the speed at half the price. In terms of speed the Cardiff Gian would have been more than 2X the speed of the Compaq Portable and the IBM 5155. The Cardiff Giant would be priced below 2000$, would weigh half (15lb as opposed to 28ls of the Protable and 30lb of the IBM 5155) and would have from start 640kb and 10MB hard drive. At 15lb the Giant would have been a true portable instead of luggable. Still almost 7kg but at least wouldn't be a back breaker.

But i agree it is difficult to say. LCD technology would have sucked in those days and when Gordon suggests to the Japanese to get rid of the ghosting with "another layer of micro capacitors" it is understandable how much more it would have cost.

I still think it would trump any portable on the market. If the 8086 would have been socketed a V30 would provide another speed boost and wouldn't be much slower than an IBM AT. Oh and i just remembered the 8087 co processor was stock.

I'm still a bit doubtful as to whether they would have managed to bring the weight down to about 15lbs, considering what a 10 MB hard drive weighed in those days.
Granted, the LCD screen would have weighed less than a CRT monitor.

I enjoyed the first two seasons, in a "can't believe they made this" kind of way. Looking forward to it starting again in the summer.
Can't quite remember what year the Giant was supposed to release but it certainly would have been killer compared to the 5155 and Compaq.
Even compared to the PC Convertible it had more memory and a faster CPU.

The whole thing with Cameron's OS was a load of ridiculous crap and let's not even try to dissect the second season as that's just as silly.
God knows what they will do with the show moved to Silicon Valley.

As I recall, the first season was set in 1983 and the second season in 1985.
I haven't seen the second season yet, but looking forward in watching it soon.

jesolo wrote:

I'm still a bit doubtful as to whether they would have managed to bring the weight down to about 15lbs, considering what a 10 MB hard drive weighed in those days.
Granted, the LCD screen would have weighed less than a CRT monitor.

Yeah the 5.25 floppy drive and hard drive would have been easily the most heavier parts. The case was all aluminum, at least i remembered being mentioned and the motherboard was 2 sided. I would actually be more skeptical about the price being so low and they be able to make a profit than actual weight. A sided motherboard would probably require a several layer board which i can imagine being quite expensive.

I first heard about Halt and Catch Fire on Vogons a while ago and decided to give it a go. Sadly I couldn't make it past the beginning of the pilot because an armadillo or some similar animal gets run over in the opening sequence. Same thing for "House of cards", when a dog gets hit by a car in the first few minutes.

I know it's probably silly but to me it sets the tone for the whole show and then I'm not interested in watching the rest. 😐