PBS Triple Header

On Tuesday, February 5, 2013, PBS Channel 9 in San Francisco broadcast three back to back shows about the history of Silicon Valley starting with "American Experience: Silicon Valley" followed by "Something Ventured" and "Steve Jobs: One Last Thing". The American Experience show started with the story of the "Traitorous 8" led by Robert Noyce leaving Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories to found Fairchild Semiconductor. This event is often considered the birth of Silicon Valley. It then continued to describe the manufacturing of transistors and integrated circuits which were used in the first moon mission which resulted in Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in July, 1969. In the summer of 1968 after Noyce was passed over for a promotion at Fairchild, he and Gordon Moore left Fairchild and founded Intel. In 1971 Intel released the 4004 "computer on a chip" which ultimately led to the personal computer revolution. "Something Ventured" described the deployment of east coast capital to fund west coast innovation and covers the role of some early venture capitalists such as Arthur Rock who raised the money to start Fairchild and Intel. Hopefully PBS will find the money for American Experience to produce additional shows to document the personal computer revolution of the 1970's and 1980's and the Internet revolution of the 1990's. "Steve Jobs: One Last Thing" was an even handed portrayal of the genius of Steve Jobs as well as the traits which antagonized some people. The show describes his rise and fall at Apple and then his return in the late 1990's.