I must say I was a bit surprised at how well done the show was. It wasn't
over-sensationalized at all. On the contrary, I thought it was very well
researched and did a good job of telling the stories and explaining the
technical stuff.
I was glad that they had more quotes from Jonathan Littman than from John
Markoff. Littman told Mitnick's story closer to what really was going on,
while Markoff stuck to his agenda of vilifying Mitnick, which he's spent
the better part of the last five years of his career doing. Markoff is
the kind of reporter I despise; one who attempts to make the news or mold
it in his view rather than simply report it.
But I don't think Mitnick's story is as rosy as he paints it either, and I
think he's spinning some revisionism on it. He's certainly got some
skeletons in his past that he's not owning up to.
Anyhoo, Draper's story is pretty much how I've heard it told before. He
really was just an unfortunate fall guy of sorts.
The warehouse where they filmed Draper is where my computers used to be
stored (well, a few still are, I'm not quite done moving yet :) There
were some shots of me typing on an Apple ][ (you may have noticed the
"CALL -151" on the screen at one point :) but you couldn't tell who it
was, just hands. The display of 1's and 0's that showed periodically was
generated on an Apple ][ as well (that is, by far, the acme of my career).
There was also some other stuff, like 6502 assembler scrolling by, and of
course the computers they showed rotating were all mine ;)
Well, that was fun. One to the next show: I'm providing some Altair
footage for a National Geographic special on computer history.
I'm also in the process of developing a documentary on the F14 flight
control computer, but that's a slow-going affair. Once the VCF's are over
for the year then I hope to kick that up into full gear.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
Received on Thu Jul 26 2001 - 05:06:38 BST