81 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: Halt and Catch Liar
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date: 2014-06-14 11:00:00
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category: TV Shows
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permalink: /blog/2014/06/14/
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---
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I had high hopes for the new AMC series "[Halt and Catch Fire](http://www.amctv.com/shows/halt-and-catch-fire),"
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but it has proven to be an utter disappointment. I think I can suspend my disbelief as well as anyone, but this
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show requires you to completely turn your brain off in order to be believed. I'm also baffled by the show's
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high [IMDb score](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543312/), which is currently 8.4 (out of 10). Either AMC has figured
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out how to game the system, or viewers are easily turned on by clichés, like the know-it-all Hot Programmer,
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the self-assured Sales Guy, and the non-plot-advancing sex that they almost instantly engage in.
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The premise: ex-IBM Sales Guy waltzes into a fictional computer company, smooth-talks his way into a top
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marketing position without so much as a resumé, and then immediately risks all, including a huge potential lawsuit
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with IBM, because he has dreams of building IBM clones that are "2x fast" at "1/2 price" -- with *handles*!
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And the first thing they must do to achieve this dream is clone the IBM PC ROM BIOS, which the show pretends
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was so secret that you couldn't even tell which chips on the IBM PC motherboard contained the ROM. Never mind
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that IBM published the entire ROM BIOS listing in their Technical Reference Manual, which also included system
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diagrams identifying every chip in the machine. I think if you're going to weave facts into your fiction,
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the least you can do is get your facts right.
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And centerpiece of this whole conceit -- the cloning of the IBM PC ROM BIOS. What a farce! Check out this
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scene from Episode 2, where Brilliant Engineer looks at Hot Programmer's whiteboard in awe. Apparently, he
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is easily awed, because he did the same thing when Sales Guy wrote "2x fast, 1/2 price" on an earlier whiteboard.
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[<img src="/blog/images/halt-and-catch-liar-small.jpg" alt='"Halt and Catch Fire" Scene from Episode 2'/>](/blog/images/halt-and-catch-liar.jpg)
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So if you deconstruct the code on this whiteboard, you quickly notice that while it IS assembly language, it is
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NOT the sort of assembly language you would find in a ROM BIOS, let alone ANYTHING that would leave you in awe.
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Here are some excerpts:
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Initialization
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MOV AX,CX ; set up DS
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MOV DS,AX
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MOV SS,AX ; and SS
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LEA AX,BEGINSTACK
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MOV SP,AX
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MOV AL,OUTINT
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...
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TSTART
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LEA AX,BEGTRACE
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MOV POINT,AX
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MOV AL,YES ; TURN TRACE ON
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MOV TFLAG,AL
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MOV AL,NO ; NOT WRAPPED
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MOV WRAP,AL
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MOV AX,CS ; CONVERT ADDRESS FOR OUTPUT
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LEA SI,LOADCS
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CALL HEXPRT
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MOV AX,100H
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LEA SI,LOADIP
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CALL HEXPRT
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LEA DX,SIGNIN
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MOV AH,9
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INT DOSINT
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LEA DX,OUTPUT
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MOV AL,OUTPUT (?)
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MOV AH,25H ; Set Interrupt Vector
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INT DOSINT ; Have DOS place the interrupt...
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...
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This is clearly **NOT** code for a PC ROM BIOS, because no PC BIOS would ever issue a DOS interrupt.
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A BIOS is designed to be called *by* DOS, not the other way around.
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This turns out to be code largely copied from a file I found online: [PCTRACE.ASM](http://ftpmirror.your.org/pub/misc/dos/RbbsInABoxVol1No2_640/files/007P/PCTRACE.ZIP-contents/PCTRACE.ASM)
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Another curiosity is that searching for this resulted in a "[Googlewhack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack)"
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of sorts:
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Technically, a Googlewhack (a two-word search that yields exactly one result) must use two words found in an actual
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dictionary. But dictionaries are so passé.
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*[@jeffpar](http://twitter.com/jeffpar)*
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*June 14, 2014*
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