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"AMC ordered two scripted drama pilots Tuesday, one of which will embellish the 1980s personal computing boom. Halt &amp; Catch Fire will tell the tech story \"through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time.\" \nBreaking Bad executive producers Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein will serve similar roles for the show's production, which begins in 2013. Chris Cantwell and Chris Rodgers created Halt &amp; Catch Fire. \nThe show is set in Texas' Silicon Prairie and its characters \"will be challenged by greed and ego.\"\n\nSEE ALSO: Beyonce HBO Doc Will Feature Footage From Her Laptop | AMC Settles Dish Legal Battle\nAMC also ordered production for Turn, which will focus on a New York farmer's attempt to rally friends and transform them into spies in 1778 during the Revolutionary War.\nBONUS: 20 Misty Memories of Personal Computing\n\n\n\nTechnostalgia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1. The Dial-Up Sound\n\nGo on, get your fix:\n\n\n\n\n\nYeah, that's the stuff.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. You've Got Mail!\n\nAOL's email notification sound was positively Pavlovian for many '90s netizens. It was confirmation that a) you had successfully connected to the ISP, and b) someone out there likes you.\n\n\n\n\nThose dulcet tones belong to voice actor Elwood Edwards, whose wife worked for AOL in 1989. She brought tape of his other famous phrases \u2014 \"welcome,\" \"goodbye,\" and \"file's done\" \u2014 into the office. The rest is history.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n3. The Whir of a Floppy Disk Drive\n\nIn their prime, each one of these puppies could hold about 120 MB \u2014 great for storing a few documents or images; less great for large applications and games. Before CD-ROMs became the norm, you might need 10 or 15 disks to install one program.\nListening to the drive tick away while the progress bar drew closer to 100% was like Christmas Eve for anxious young nerds.\n\n\n\n\n\nImage courtesy of AJ Batac.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n4. Your Screen Saver Collection\n\nFlying toasters. Tropical aquariums. Fireworks.\nScreen savers not only protected your tube monitor from dreaded \"burn-in,\" but were the technological calibration of your personality.\nMany were free (or free to try), and it's now safe to admit you kept your collection long after LCD screens made them functionally obsolete.\nDon't even get us started on the holiday ones.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n5. Trying to Look Cool in Your AIM Away Message\n\nBefore you wasted your life on Facebook, you wasted it on instant messaging programs like AIM.\nThe status update wasn't even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye when IM users would inform friends of their thoughts, feelings and jams via away messages.\nImage courtesy of College Candy.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n6. Anthropomorphic Office Supplies\n\nClippy, you magnificent bastard. You were always one step ahead of me. It's like you knew exactly what I was writing before I even finished typing the sentence.\nRest in peace, old chum.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n7. ISPs - The Old Guard\n\nBefore you got your Internet from cable or telephone companies, it arrived via dial-up service providers. A menu of local phone numbers would connect you to an ISP like Compuserve (pictured), Prodigy, and later, AOL \u2014 the service that would come to dominate in the '90s.\nBeing \"online\" was a more curated experience. ISP home screens were peppered with links to topics, sections and news. The web \"at large\" was just one of many options.\nWeb surfing later became the norm as users ditched ISP portals in favor of standardized browsers like Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n8. Encarta\n\nKids today, with their Wikipedias and their Googles.\nIn 1993, we had Encarta, the multimedia encyclopedia from Microsoft. It offered your standard Funk &amp; Wagnalls fare with the added value of color photos, music clips, videos and interactive content.\nMicrosoft later added articles from Collier's and Macmillan, making the product more comprehensive each year.\nOf particular nostalgic significance was an incorporated game called MindMaze, which tasked young players to explore a castle by answering trivia questions \u2014 you know, because learning can be fun.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n9. Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack\n\nThe best part about getting a new computer? Finding out which games were packaged with your operating system.\nMicrosoft Windows PCs included a bundle of iconic 16-bit time wasters: FreeCell, Minesweeper, Rodent's Revenge and a little gem called SkiFree.\nCreated in a Microsoft programmer's spare time, the game was added to the Entertainment Pack in 1991, and challenged players to avoid obstacles while skiing down an endless hill. The Abominable Snow Monster still haunts the dreams of many gamers to this very day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n10. A/S/L?\n\nBefore Twitter, there was Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a vast, anonymous wilderness subdivided into channels. The platform was not owned or operated by a single entity \u2014 rather, a network admin would run his or her own server, around which a community might form. This was distributed communication in its purest form.\nIRC networks still exist today, and anyone with a functional client program can jump in. Just remember kids: On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.\nImage courtesy of jegsworks.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n11. The Rise of PC Adventure Gaming\n\nColor graphics and larger disk capacities were great for productivity, but they also ignited the imaginations of a new breed of storyteller.\nGame publishers like Sierra Entertainment hit it big with franchises like King's Quest (pictured), Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. These relatively non-linear game worlds allowed players to explore and solve puzzles through text commands. The scripts were rich and often humorous.\nThe games later evolved into \"point-and-click\" adventures as PC graphics become increasingly sophisticated.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n12. Ancient Word Processors\n\nWord processors existed before the PC era, but they were machines with a singular purpose.\nSoftware like Microsoft Works and Corel's WordPerfect ushered in the age of \"desktop publishing.\"\nFinally, a more efficient way to write your Xena: Warrior Princess fan fiction.\nImage courtesy of Wikipedia.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n13. The Poor Man's Music Library\n\nWhile MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) tech predates the web by more than a decade, the advent of MIDI-compatible sound cards in the early '90s gave rise to a culture of armchair composers who would sequence popular songs and share them liberally online.\nSure, the Back to the Future suite sounds better with a real orchestra, but this version is free from a cool Angelfire site I just found.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n14. The Rise of PC Puzzle Gaming\n\nWhile consoles generally focused on action platformers, the keyboard and mouse lent themselves to puzzle games, which got richer in the '90s.\nLemmings (pictured) challenged players to save a troop of witless rodents by assigning them tasks like building, digging and blocking.\nFirst-person puzzlers like Myst set the bar for esoteric questing. Kudos if you can beat that thing without cheating.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n15. Command Line Operating Systems\n\nFancy icons be damned. If you wanted to run a program or see a list of files in a pre-1985 PC, you'd have to type that shiz out on a command line \u2014 likely in MS-DOS.\nIt really wasn't until 1990, when Windows 3.0 hit the market, that graphical user interfaces made the big time.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n16. Peer-to-Peer File Sharing\n\nThe advent of the MP3 socked the recording industry in the gut. It wasn't long before peer-to-peer file sharing networks like Napster and Kazaa turned music ownership on its head.\nLegal and moral issues aside, the notion of downloading any song on demand (well, within the hour) was revolutionary. Though Napster was sued into oblivion, it paved the way for the media consumption paradigms we enjoy today \u2014 namely, iTunes, Netflix and Spotify.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n17. Under Construction Clipart\n\nIf you were savvy enough to have a site in the early days of the web, chances are you were always looking for ways to improve it.\nNetiquette demanded that any unfinished web pages be marked \"Under Construction\" to ensure the safety of passersby (you wouldn't want someone to trip on a stray HTML bracket and sue your ass).\nBonus points if the signage was an animated GIF.\nImage courtesy of TextFiles.com.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n18. The Rise of PC Strategy Gaming\n\nWhile Sierra dominated the adventures, Maxis took gold on strategy and simulation. Its \"Sim\" franchises upped the ante on the entire genre \u2014 Sim City, a jewel in the crown, of course. Again, personal computers tended to trump consoles on breadth and depth, and innovative gameplay concepts were on the rise.\nNotable giants of the era include Sid Meier's Civilization and the birth of real-time strategy staples like Blizzard's Warcraft and Microsoft's Age of Empires.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n19. Media Players\n\nSo you've amassed an MP3 collection of dubious legality. While Napster has a built-in audio player, the discerning music pirate of 1997 requires a stand-alone app.\nThe web was chock-full of music players, but WinAmp took the cake. Playlist support, a serious EQ and skins to suit any taste made this free download an essential dorm party jukebox.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n20. Web Portals\n\nEven as curated ISP experiences faded away, web users still flocked to sites that offered a \"home base\" for their daily surfing.\nYahoo became the go-to homepage of the Internet. Its web directory put news, search, ecommerce and eventually email in one handy site. A link from Yahoo.com all but guaranteed a traffic windfall for the lucky destination.\nWhile web portals have fallen out of fashion in the U.S., they still drive piles of traffic in emerging online markets \u2014 in Asia, for instance.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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