Triumph of the Nerds

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Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996) is a documentary film written and hosted by Robert X. Cringely and produced for British television by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The title refers to the 1984 film, Revenge of the Nerds, and the documentary itself is based on Cringely's book Accidental Empires. The three-part film first premiered on PBS in June 1996.

[edit] Plot and structure

The film chronicles the rise of the personal computer/home computer beginning in the 1970s with the Altair 8800, Apple I and Apple II and VisiCalc. It continues through the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh revolution through the 1980s and the mid 1990s at the beginning of the Dot-com boom. It includes interviews with Apple Computer's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates.

[edit] Video Release

Many have complained that the current video release (put out by Ambrose Video) of the documentary has had fifteen to twenty minutes of significant footage removed. Older, unedited VHS copies of the documentary are highly prized, but very hard to find.

[edit] Sequel

In 1998, two years prior to the dot-com bubble burst of Silicon Valley, Cringely hosted a sequel, Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet. It was also broadcast on PBS and documented the development of the ARPANET, the Internet, the World Wide Web and the Dot-com boom of the mid and late 1990s.

[edit] See also

• History of computing hardware (1960s-present)
• Influence of the IBM-PC on the PC market
• Pirates of Silicon Valley

[edit] External links

• Triumph of the Nerds at PBS.org
• Triumph of the Nerds at the Internet Movie Database
• In Search of the Valley A 2006 documentary on Silicon Valley featuring many of those also featured in "Triumph of the Nerds"'