History Series / HaltAndCatchFire

* BatmanGambit: Joe's entire scheme relies on correctly predicting how people will react to his manipulations and using this knowledge to put them in a situation where they can't or won't say no to him.

* FiveFingerDiscount: Cameron uses a trick quarter to avoid having to pay for arcade games in "I/O", and steals several shirts in a mall store in "FUD".

* GoodOlBoy: Cardiff Electric Senior VP John Bosworth and company founder Nathan Cardiff are both hard nosed, conservative Texan businessmen who don't take kindly to Joe's risky, progressive East Coast corporate thinking.

** Besides IBM, multiple real-world period computer hardware and software manufacturers are mentioned, including [[TI99 Texas Instruments]] (TI), [[AppleII Apple]], [[{{Commodore64}} Commodore]], Tandy, Microsoft and Compaq.
*** Gordon's daughters are seen playing with a Speak and Spell, manufactured by TI.
*** Despite the fact it exists in TheVerse as another company, Cardiff is largely based on TI. In 1983, TI dominated Dallas and was second only to IBM as a computing powerhouse, but today, despite remaining as one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, its mainstream public image is that of a purveyor of obsolete products at ludicrous prices that survives only because the teaching profession and testing industry are paranoid of Internet-enabled devices.

-->'''Gordon Clark:''' ''(to his two daughters)'' The Symphonic... was the best thing your dad ever did.

* BatmanGambit: Joe's entire scheme relies on correctly predicting how people will react to his manipulations and using it to put them in a situation where they will not/cannot say no to him.

* ConsummateLiar: Joe lies to everyone about his intentions. Often someone will call him out on a lie and Joe will pacify him/her with another lie. It seems he is unable to stop himself from "selling" which in his case means exaggerating the truth.

** Lampshaded by Joe when he points out that IBM might have an army of lawyers to send after them but Cardiff's legal argument is so sound that their single in-house lawyer will be able to beat them in court.

** Cardiff Electric loses more than 68% of its revenue after IBM poached their client base. Even clients who have been with the company for years, cannot turn down the amazing deals IBM is offering to lure them away.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Joe is a ManipulativeBastard but he is correct that they can break IBM's stranglehold on the industry. In turn the people who call him out on his actions are acting jerkish but are fully justified in their anger. John Bosworth outright states that he is going to make the team's lives miserable but their actions jeopardized twenty years of his life's work and threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of Cardiff employees.

* ManipulativeBastard: Joe manipulates everyone around him to get his project off the ground. When they realize what is going on they call him out on it but have no other choice but to join him.
* MissingStepsPlan: It quickly becomes apparent that Joe only has vague ideas about how to proceed after he gets Cardiff Electric to start designing a PC clone. His ultimate vision is to revolutionize the personal computer industry and dethrone IBM but he does not yet know what Cardiff's computer should really be like and more importantly does not know how to convince people to buy it.
* MortonsFork: Joe puts Cardiff Electric into this situation. If they fire Joe and Gordon, it will be seen as an admission of guilt and IBM will sue them into bankruptcy. If they do not fire them and instead claim that they are legitimately building an IBM clone, they will have to invest millions into the technology and then try to compete against a pissed off IBM which will most likely bankrupt the company. Their only sliver of hope is that Joe is right and their new computer will be able to successfully compete with IBM's PC.

** This is Gordon's and Cameron's reaction when they see the army of lawyer, IBM has sent to deal with their little 'project'. Joe is unfazed since he was fully expected this reaction from his former bosses at IBM.

* SanitySlippage: The second episode reveals that under his confident demeanor, Joe can be really unstable. It is implied that he suffered a nervous breakdown during his time with IBM. When it seems that his plan will fizzle out, he goes to a store selling audio equipment and goes bonkers when a salesman tells him that the store is going out of business.

-->'''Gordon Clark:''' ''(to his two daughters)'' The Symphonic...was the best thing your Dad ever did."
* SpottingTheThread: Cameron realizes that Joe's story about [[spoiler:getting his scars after some bullies chased him off the roof for not fitting in]] was BS because the two historic events central to his story actually happened about a year apart rather than happening that same week.
* TechnoBabble: {{Averted}}, characters use actual computer science, electrical engineering, and information technology concepts and terminology.

* XMeetsY: ''Series/MadMen'' meets ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]''.

** Averted when IBM offers Cameron twice the money she is getting at Cardiff but she ends up turning them down.
* GamerChick: Cameron Howe gets kicked out of an arcade after hogging one of the games for several hours and using a quarter on a string to avoid paying.

** Joe and Gordon use reverse engineering to recreate the assembly language code of IBM PC BIOS.

** Besides IBM, multiple real-world period computer hardware and software manufacturers are mentioned, including [[TI99 Texas Instruments]], [[AppleII Apple]], [[{{Commodore64}} Commodore]], Tandy, Microsoft and Compaq.

*** Despite the fact it exists in TheVerse as another company, Cardiff is largely based on TI. In 1983, TI dominated Dallas and was second only to IBM as a computing powerhouse, but today, its public image is that of a purveyor of obsolete products at ludicrous prices that survives only because the teaching profession and testing industry are paranoid of Internet-enabled devices.

->''"[[TitleDrop HALT AND CATCH FIRE]] (HCF): An early computer command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once. Control of the computer could not be regained."''

''Halt and Catch Fire'' is an American television series airing on AMC. Set in the "Silicon Prairie" of Texas in [[TheEighties 1983]], it is the story of a trio of employees at a small firm called Cardiff Electric who attempt to create an [[IBMPersonalComputer IBM clone]].

* AwfulWeddedLife: After the failure of the Symphonic project, Donna & Gordon's marriage breaks down into this.

* GamerChick: Cameron Howe gets kicked out of an arcade after hogging one of the games for several hours and using a quarter on a string to avoid paying.

* ICouldaBeenAContender: Gordon was once a hotshot computer designer who created a revolutionary computer called Symphonic. After the project tanked, he was forced to take a lowly job as a support engineer at Cardiff Electric in order to support his family. The bitterness from the failure caused him to start drinking heavily and to neglect his family. Joe presents Gordon with a second chance to change the computer industry and Gordon throws caution to the wind when he agrees to reverse engineer the IBM PC.

* LoopholeAbuse: Joe attempts to invoke this by having the Cardiff Electric ROM BIOS designed in a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design clean room environment]]; however, Cameron's rebellious and free-spirited nature makes this difficult.

''Halt and Catch Fire'' is an American television series airing on AMC. Set in the "Silicon Prairie" of Texas in [[TheEighties 1983]], it is the story of a trio of employees, slick talking salesman Joe [=MacMillian=], former budding engineer Gordon Clark, and volatile and free-spirited college dropout Cameron Howe, at a small firm called Cardiff Electric who attempt to create an [[IBMPersonalComputer IBM clone]].

* BerserkButton: For Gordon, dismissing the Symphonic as silly.
-->'''Gordon Clark:''' ''(to his two daughters)'' The Symphonic was the best thing your dad ever did.

* GamerChick: Cameron Howe gets kicked out of an arcade after hogging one of the games for several hours and using a quarter on a string to avoid paying.
* GoodOlBoy: Cardiff Electric Senior VP John Bosworth and company founder Nathan Cardiff are both hard nosed, conservative Texan businessmen who don't take kindly to Joe's risky, progressive East Coast corporate thinking.
* ICouldaBeenAContender: Gordon was once a hotshot computer designer who created a revolutionary computer called Symphonic. After the project tanked when the machine failed to boot at COMDEX, a large computer industry trade show, he was forced to take a lowly job as a support engineer at Cardiff Electric in order to support his family. The bitterness from the failure caused him to start drinking heavily and to neglect his family. Joe presents Gordon with a second chance to change the computer industry and Gordon throws caution to the wind when he agrees to reverse engineer the IBM PC.

*** Despite the fact it exists in TheVerse as another company, Cardiff is largely based on TI. Which in 1983 dominated Dallas and was second only to IBM as a computing powerhouse, while today its public image is a purveyor of obsolete products at ludicrous prices to a captive market because the teaching profession and testing industry are paranoid of Internet-enabled devices.

* SpottingTheThread: Cameron realizes that Joe's story about [[spoiler: getting his scars after some bullies chased him off the roof for not fitting in]] was BS because the two historic events central to the story actually happened about a year apart rather than happening that same week.

''Halt and Catch Fire'' is an American television series airing on AMC. Set in the "Silicon Prairie" of Texas in [[TheEighties 1983]], it is the story of a trio of employees at a small firm called Cardiff Electric who attempt to create an [[IBMPersonalComputer IBM clone]].

* AwfulWeddedLife: After the failure of the Symphonic project, Donna & Gordon's marriage breaks down into this.

* GamerChick: Cameron Howe gets kicked out of an arcade after hogging one of the games for several hours and using a quarter on a string to avoid paying.

* ICouldaBeenAContender: Gordon was once a hotshot computer designer who created a revolutionary computer called Symphonic. After the project tanked, he was forced to take a lowly job as a support engineer at Cardiff Electric in order to support his family. The bitterness from the failure caused him to start drinking heavily and to neglect his family. Joe presents Gordon with a second chance to change the computer industry and Gordon throws caution to the wind when he agrees to reverse engineer the IBM PC.

* EveryoneHasAPrice: Cardiff Electric loses more than 68% of its revenue after IBM poached their client base. Even clients who have been with the company for years, cannot turn down the amazing deals IBM is offering to lure them away.

* ConsumateLiar: Joe lies to everyone about his intentions. Often someone will call him out on a lie and Joe will pacify him/her with another lie. It seems he is unable to stop himself from "selling" which in his case means exaggerating the truth.

** Besides IBM, multiple real-world period computer hardware and software manufacturers are mentioned, including Texas Instruments, Apple, Commodore, Tandy, Microsoft and Compaq.

*** Despite the fact it exists in TheVerse as another company, Cardiff is largely based on TI. Which in 1983 dominated Dallas and was second only to IBM as a computing powerhouse, while today its' public image is a purveyor of obsolete products at ludicrous prices to a captive market because the teaching profession and testing industry are paranoid of Internet-enabled devices.
** Cameron is seen playing an Atari Centipede machine in "I/O".

** Besides IBM, multiple real-world period computer hardware and software manufacturers are mentioned, including Texas Instruments, Apple, Commodore, Tandy, and Microsoft.

* RefugeInAudacity: Joe manages to force Cardiff Electric into the computer business by openly telling his former bosses at IBM that he and Gordon were creating a clone computer, forcing Cardiff to claim that they had been working on their own computer all along in order to avoid a lawsuit. And Cardiff realizes that they can't fire [=MacMillan=] or Clarke because that would tip off IBM that they knew that the computer project violated IBM's copyright.

* TheAlcoholic: The first time we see Gordon Clarke, he's being bailed out of the drunk tank.

* ICouldaBeenAContender: Gordon was once a hotshot computer designer who created a revolutionary computer called Symphonic. After the project tanked he was forced to take a lowly job as a support engineer at Cardiff Electric in order to support his family. The bitterness from the failure caused him to start drinking heavily and to neglect his family. Joe presents Gordon with a second chance to change the computer industry and Gordon throws caution to the wind when he agrees to reverse engineer the IBM PC.

''Halt and Catch Fire'' is an American television series airing on AMC. Set in Texas, [[TheEighties circa 1983]], it is the story of a trio of employees at a small firm called Cardiff Electric who attempt to create an [[IBMPersonalComputer IBM clone]].

* TechnoBabble: {{Averted}}, the show uses actual computer science, electrical engineering, and information technology concepts and terminology.

* ComputerWars: The show takes place during the late part of the 8-bit computer era, with Joe throwing Cardiff Electric onto the front lines.

** Everyone in the room when Joe reveals that he was the one who informed IBM that they reverse engineered their proprietary BIOD chip.

* CaliforniaDoubling: While the show is set in the Silicon Prairie of [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]], the show is filmed in UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}.

* ComputerWars: The show takes place during the late part of the 8-bit computer era.

* OhCrap: This is Gordon's and Cameron's reaction when they see the army of lawyer, IBM has sent to deal with their little 'project'. Joe is unfazed since he was fully expected this reaction from his former bosses at IBM.

* ICouldHaveBeenAContender: Gordon was once a hotshot computer designer who created a revolutionary computer called Symphonic. After the project tanked he was forced to take a lowly job as a support engineer at Cardiff Electric in order to support his family. The bitterness from the failure caused him to start drinking heavily and to neglect his family. Joe presents Gordon with a second chance to change the computer industry and Gordon throws caution to the wind when he agrees to reverse engineer the IBM PC.

''Halt and Catch Fire'' is an American television series airing on AMC. Set in Texas, circa 1983, it is the story of a trio of employees at a small firm called Cardiff Electric who attempt to create an IBM clone.

* BatmanGambit: Joe's entire scheme relies on correctly predicting how people will react to his manipulations and using it to put them in a situation where they will not/can not say no to him.
* BuffySpeak: Joe tries to convince Gordon to join him by saying "Computer's aren't the thing, they're the thing that gets us to the thing."
* CaliforniaDoubling: While the show is set in the Silicon Prairie of the [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]], the show is filmed in UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}.

* XMeetsY: ''Series/MadMen'' meets ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]''

* BatmanGambit: Joe's entire scheme relies on correctly predicting how people will react to his manipulations and using it to put them in a situation where they will not/can not say no to him.