# The historic Macworld Boston 1997 Keynote!



## Macaholic (Jan 7, 2003)

Hi folks. I just bought "Pirates of The Silicon Valley". Very cool movie to watch. Anyway, has anybody seen an archive of Steve Jobs' keynote address at Macworld in Boston in August, 1997? You know *THE* keynote address where the Microsoft deal was unleashed upon the stunned Mac masses with Bill Gates 100 feet high on the jumbo screen? Man, would I love to see that keynote address!


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## elmer (Dec 19, 2002)

What is "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? Can you give us a summary? What did you like about it?

By the way, this page links to archives of the 97 Boston keynote, but appears to require a password.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by elmer:
*What is "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? Can you give us a summary? What did you like about it?

By the way, this page links to archives of the 97 Boston keynote, but appears to require a password.*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's a movie about Apple and Microsoft. It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I believe it shows the history of Apple from the early days when Woz created the Apple II, to the days of the creation of the Mac and the stealing of the Mac GUI by Gates for Windows, to the 1997 keynote of Macworld. I think it also includes Apple going over to Xerox to see the GUI that they based the Mac on.

The movie is a few years old now. It was show on TV on a couple of the channels a couple years back.

Bill Gates looks quite imposing (ominous) staring over Steve Jobs shoulder, larger than life on the presentation screen.


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## elmer (Dec 19, 2002)

Thanks, matey


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## used to be jwoodget (Aug 22, 2002)

Pirates of Silicon Valley

You might find the video at a store but its not exactly a high budget movie (although Noah Wylie pulls off a reasonable Jobs unlike Anthony Michael Halls Gates).


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

Was at the MacWorld Boston 97 Keynote  Pirates of Silicon portrays it very inaccurately.  There were a couple of boos, but mostly laughing and chatting. The movie portrays it like people were screaming at the stage. 

That was a really fun Macworld!


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## VertiGoGo (Aug 21, 2001)

Pirates is a great flick! 

It would be cool to see them do a sequel now...what with the release of the iMacs, iApps, OS X, anti-trust lawsuits, Win98, NT, 2000, ME, XP (cripes, make up yer mind Bill!), yadda yadda yadda...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Pirates is a terrific flick and very accurately captures Jobs and Gates and theodd relationship between them.
The actor is simply perfect as Jobs.
It's well worth hunting down if you want some visual history.....hey it's just plain a good story and well acted despite a low budget.
Reading about the history of Apple and computing in general is fascinating and high drama.


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## (( p g )) (Aug 17, 2002)

Of course this raises the tantalizing question of what the title of that sequel would be. How about:

- Honey, I Shrunk the Competition;
- Confessions of a Switched Mind;
- Attack of the Clones (oh wait that's been taken...darn that George Lucas); or
- Battlestar Monopolica.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by VertiGoGo:
*Pirates is a great flick! 

It would be cool to see them do a sequel now...what with the release of the iMacs, iApps, OS X, anti-trust lawsuits, Win98, NT, 2000, ME, XP (cripes, make up yer mind Bill!), yadda yadda yadda...







*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


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## Tomac (Dec 31, 2002)

Plug. Pirates on VHS at amazon.ca. Too bad there's no DVD version. At least I've got the VHS and MPG of it.


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

I have been meaning to rent that movie again, i watched it when it premiered on TNT (or was it TBS?) and remember liking it.

On a side note, Robin Williams said some funny stuff while doing a Bill Gates Impression in "Robin Williams: Live on Broadway".

------
Senator: "Mr. Gates, do you deny trying to establish a monopoly?"

Bill: "Monopoly is just a game Mr. Senator, I'm trying to control the f*cking world"
------

--PB


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## Macaholic (Jan 7, 2003)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by elmer:
*What is "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? Can you give us a summary? What did you like about it?

By the way, this page links to archives of the 97 Boston keynote, but appears to require a password.*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks, Elmer! I just tried those links, too. It's looking to me like we have a 404 error problem, rather than needing a password (file not found). I'm going to contact the webmaster and beg and plead for it.

As for "Pirates", if you're a computer fan, you gotta see this film. It even starts earlier than the Apple II, right back when Gates, Jobs and Woz were still in college. The two things I was most impressed with after watching this movie are:

1) Bill Gates has TREMENDOUS balls. The guy sells an operating system to IBM and NOT even having an operating system and the fact that IBM buys it sight unseen is truly the most amazing event in computer history! Then, Gates & Co. have to scramble to do "something" to provide an OS for them and buys this operating system from some schmo for $50,000.00! Like, forget hardware or software innovations. His wrangling was TRULY revolutionary!

2) Steve Jobs is (or certainly was) an A$$HOLE! But, I'm glad he being an a$$hole at 1 Infinite Loop, or Apple would never have happened.

3) Xerox and IBM--and surely all the "big companies" at that time, had NO IDEA what they were doing with computers. IBM says to Gates, "Sure. Go ahead and sell this operating system to other companies. We don't care about software. Hardware's where the money's at." And then Xerox to Jobs, "Sure, you can use this stupid mouse thing and that software our people developed. We're a photocopier company; not a computer company."

IBM and Xerox: Dumb and Dumber! Like could you imagine if Xerox's execs had seen the light and transitioned to computer manufacturing? Even more than the IBM/MS-DOS deal, their possession of a working GUI was The Biggest Thing Of All! And if they had been able to see beyond their own noses, Apple would be a footnote in computing history and Xerox would have been the giant, with MS playing second fiddle to them! But, those big boys just didn't understand the software dimension. It's amazing, really.


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## elmer (Dec 19, 2002)

On that topic, someone told me once about a TV movie called "Revenge of the Nerds" or something like that, that had the stuff about CP/M and QDOS and Xerox and all that in it. Anybody seen that one? I know it had the word "Nerds" in the title.


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