Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)

History of Apple and Microsoft.

Director:

Martyn Burke

Writers:

Paul Freiberger (book), Michael Swaine (book)

Stars:

Anthony Michael Hall, Noah Wyle, Joey Slotnick

Nominated for 5 Primetime Emmys. Another 2 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Noah Wyle	...	Steve Jobs
Joey Slotnick	...	Steve Wozniak
J.G. Hertzler	...	Ridley Scott
Anthony Michael Hall	...	Bill Gates
Wayne Pére	...	Captain Crunch
Sheila Shaw	...	Mrs. Wozniak
Gema Zamprogna	...	Arlene
John DiMaggio	...	Steve Ballmer
Josh Hopkins	...	Paul Allen
Gailard Sartain	...	Ed Roberts
Allan Kolman	...	Therapist
Richard Waltzer	...	Homebrew Tech
Harris Mann	...	Longhair #1
Clay Wilcox	...	Longhair #2
Marcus Giamatti	...	Dan Kottke

Storyline

This is a semi-humorous biographical film about the men who made the world of technology what it is today, their struggles during college, the founding of their companies, and the ingenious actions they took to build up the global corporate empires of Apple Computer Corporation and Microsoft Inc.

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Plot Keywords:

microsoft | apple computer | computer | bill gates | college | 

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Taglines:

Good artists copy... Great artists steal.

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 June 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Szilícium-völgy kalózai

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Haft Entertainment, St. Nick Productions, Turner Network Television (TNT)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At the 1999 Macworld conference, shortly after the premiere of this TV movie, the introductory comments were made not by Steve Jobs, but by Noah Wyle, reprising his role in this movie. The real Jobs emerged shortly after and traded jokes with Wyle.

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Goofs

In an early scene, where Woz and Jobs were chatting about the future (in Captain Crunch's bedroom or dorm room), there is a Star Trek poster hanging on the wall. The Enterprise shown is the earliest version from the original TV show, but the poster ("All I need to know about life I learned from Star Trek") was produced in the 1990s. The words above "Star Trek" have been trimmed off.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Steve Jobs: I don't want you to think of this as just a film - some process of converting electrons and magnetic impulses into shapes and figures and sounds. No. Listen to me. We're here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why even be here? We're creating a completely new consciousness, like an artist or poet. That's how you have to think of this. We're rewriting the history of human thought with what we're doing.
Ridley Scott: Right. Well, Steven, at the moment I'm a touch more worried about getting...

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Crazy Credits

Janja Vujovich is credited as "Post Sound Goddess".

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Connections

Spoofs Saturday Night Fever (1977)

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Soundtracks

Isn't Life Strange
Written by John Lodge
Performed by The Moody Blues

User Reviews

Fun movie missed most of the facts

This movie was fun. It caught the flavor of the two companies, Apple and Microsoft. Unfortunately, it missed many facts that would have enhanced the film further. For instance, IBM initially looked at Microsoft ONLY for programming languages. Digital Research was the preeminent operating system company. However, after Gary Kildall blew off two meetings with IBM, Gates saw an opening and took it. The QDOS MS then purchased and evolved into MS-DOS, was actually pirated code from Digital, specifically the code for CP/M-86. Had Gary Kildall made one call to the FBI and another to his lawyer, Gates would just be getting out of a halfway house about now. I learned most of this from a close friend, Gordon Eubanks. Gordon was Kildall's right-hand and head of his languages division after meeting Kildall at the US Navy Post-Graduate School in Monterey.

Had Kildall made those calls, how different the PC world would look... Microsoft would probably not exist, Digital Research would have licensed CP/M86 to IBM, allowing such things as 16MB of directly addressable memory in the very first PC's, something not available until many years later. We would be GEM based, not Windows based. WordStar, Ashton Tate and Lotus would still probably be the major application suppliers.

How much more ineresting would this movie had been with the facts, which are much better than anything a Hollywood writer could create.