Triumph of the Nerds | |
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Genre | Documentary |
Based on | Accidental Empires by Robert X. Cringely |
Written by | Robert X. Cringely |
Screenplay by | Robert X. Cringely |
Directed by | Paul Sen [1] |
Narrated by | Robert X. Cringely |
Theme music composer | Nitin Sawhney |
Country of origin |
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Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | John Gau |
Cinematography | John Booth [1] |
Editor | Michael Duxbury [1] |
Running time |
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Production companies | John Gau Productions for Channel 4 and Oregon Public Broadcasting |
Original release | |
Network | |
Release | 14 April 1996 |
Related | |
Nerds 2.0.1 |
Triumph of the Nerds is a 1996 British/American television documentary, produced by John Gau Productions and Oregon Public Broadcasting for Channel 4 and PBS. It explores the development of the personal computer in the United States from World War II to 1995. It was first screened as three episodes between 14 and 28 April 1996 on Channel 4, and as a single programme on 16 December 1996 on PBS.
Triumph of the Nerds was written and hosted by Robert X. Cringely (Mark Stephens) and based on his 1992 book Accidental Empires. The documentary comprises interviews with important figures connected with the personal computer, including Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Ed Roberts, and Larry Ellison. It also includes archival footage of Gary Kildall and commentary from Douglas Adams, the author of the science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The title Triumph of the Nerds is a play on the title of the 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds . [2]
Cringely followed the series with Nerds 2.0.1 (titled Glory of the Geeks in the UK), a history of the Internet to 1998. In 2012, Cringely released the full interview that Steve Jobs gave in 1995 for Triumph of the Nerds as Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview.
As broadcast by Channel 4:
Triumph of the Nerds was a successful series and Cringely noted in a 1998 interview that it was "a stalwart of [PBS] pledge drives all across America." [3]
Steve Wozniak discussed the film on the letters portion of his official website stating: "I liked Triumph of the Nerds. It was one of the best shows ever created of that kind. Everyone has the same opinion, so why ask me? I'm not a history expert and couldn't tell you what it missed or got wrong, but it seemed extremely thorough and insightful." [4]
Actor Noah Wyle has also stated that after initially resisting the role, he finally agreed to portray Steve Jobs in the 1999 film Pirates of Silicon Valley after viewing Triumph of the Nerds. [5]
Stephen Gary Wozniak, also known by his nickname Woz, is an American technology entrepreneur, electrical engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Computer with his early business partner Steve Jobs. Through his work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he is widely recognized as one of the most prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.
The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group in Menlo Park, California, which met from March 1975 to December 1986. The club had an influential role in the development of the microcomputer revolution and the rise of that aspect of the Silicon Valley information technology industrial complex.
Noah Strausser Speer Wyle is an American actor, producer, director, and writer. He currently plays lawyer Harry Wilson in Leverage: Redemption, a revival of Leverage (2008–2012). He is best known for his role as John Carter in the television series ER (1994–2009), which earned him nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and five Primetime Emmy Awards. He is also known for his roles as Flynn Carsen in The Librarian franchise and Tom Mason in the television series Falling Skies (2011–2015). He has appeared in films such as A Few Good Men (1992), Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), and W. (2008).
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's 1984 book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, it explores the impact that the rivalry between Jobs and Gates (Microsoft) had on the development of the personal computer. The film premiered on TNT on June 20, 1999.
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Burrell Carver Smith is a retired American computer engineer who created the first wire wrap prototype of the motherboard for the original Macintosh at Apple Computer. He became Apple employee #282 in February 1979 as an Apple II service technician. He designed the motherboard for Apple's LaserWriter.
Robert X. Cringely is the pen name of both technology journalist Mark Stephens and a string of writers for a column in InfoWorld, the one-time weekly computer trade newspaper published by IDG.
Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date, is a book written by Mark Stephens under the pen name Robert X. Cringely about the founding of the personal computer industry and the history of Silicon Valley.
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Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet – also known as Glory of the Geeks – is a 1998 American PBS television documentary that explores the development of the ARPANET, the Internet, and the World Wide Web from 1969 to 1998. It was created during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. The documentary was hosted and co-written by Robert X. Cringely, and is the sequel to the 1996 documentary, Triumph of the Nerds. It was first broadcast as Glory of the Geeks in three episodes on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, and as Nerds 2.0.1 by PBS in the United States.
Daniel Kottke is an American businessman known for having been a college friend of Steve Jobs and one of the first employees of Apple Inc. He met Jobs at Reed College in 1972, and they trekked together through India for spiritual enlightenment and to the All One Farm. In 1976, Kottke realized his interest in computers when Jobs hired him to assemble hobbyist computer projects and then to be a part-time employee at the newly founded Apple Computer. There, he debugged the Apple II family, prototyped the Apple III and Macintosh, and endured the IPO where Steve Wozniak assigned Kottke some of his own stock. He was portrayed in several films about Apple.
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Jobs is a 2013 American biographical drama film based on the life of Steve Jobs, from 1974 while a student at Reed College to the introduction of the iPod in 2001. It is directed by Joshua Michael Stern, written by Matt Whiteley, and produced by Stern and Mark Hulme. Steve Jobs is portrayed by Ashton Kutcher, with Josh Gad as Apple Computer's co-founder Steve Wozniak. Jobs was chosen to close the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview is a documentary released to theaters in 2012. It consists of the original 70 minute interview that Steve Jobs gave to Robert X. Cringely in 1995 for the PBS documentary, Triumph of the Nerds.
The Silicon Valley Historical Association is an organization that has interviewed notable figures in Silicon Valley since 1991 and produces documentaries, publishes books, and keeps filmed history of notable figures in the technological industry.
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Steve Jobs is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin. A British-American co-production, it was adapted from the 2011 biography by Walter Isaacson and interviews conducted by Sorkin. The film covers fourteen years in the life of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, specifically ahead of three press conferences he gave during that time - the formal unveiling of the Macintosh 128K on January 24, 1984, the unveiling of the NeXT Computer on October 12, 1988, and the unveiling of the iMac G3 on May 6, 1998. Jobs is portrayed by Michael Fassbender, with Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley in supporting roles.