Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet | 
| Director: Stephen Segaller
Actors: Robert X. Cringely, Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Scott Mcnealy
Studio: PBS Home Video
List Price: $39.98
Buy New: $29.89
You Save: $10.09 (25%)
New (5) Used (8) from $14.96
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 1525
Format: Box Set, Closed-captioned, Color, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 3
Running Time: 180 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0780623010
UPC: 794054375435
EAN: 9780780623019
ASIN: 6305128235
Theatrical Release Date: 1998
Release Date: October 13, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Three video tapes are sealed in original shrink wrap in cardboard case. Case has some wear.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Triumph of the Nerds won legions of computer-skeptical and computer-naive viewers with its mix of minutiae and hip techniques. Going one step further into the digital maze, Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet operates as a sequel of sorts to the surprise docu-hit. Just as its precursor chronicled the rise of empires built on computer software, Nerds 2.0.1 collects interviews from key players in the development of the Internet. Fashionably hip in its visual feel, the film begins by amassing data on the net's crowning, collaborative irony: conceived in the Pentagon during the counterculture's smokiest high point by members--dare it be said--of the military industrial complex, the Net developed on the axis of university research networks and Deadhead (as in the Grateful Dead) electronic bulletin boards. Much of the rest has become history, but Internet and computer industry pundit Robert X. Cringley makes the narrative a jumping, attractive embrace of being a nerd. Interviews with Bill Gates, Mark Andreesen, and Steve Case make these three hours (three tapes slipcased in a nice box) fly by. --Andrew Bartlett
Description
Join Robert X Cringely in this much-anticipated sequel to Triumph of the Nerds, as he turns his well-informed and irreverent eye on the intriguing history of the Internet. Go deep into the bowels of the Pentagon to witness the birth of the Internet and follow its rapid rise to the cutting edge of the World Wide Web. On his journey, Cringely interviews the unknown nerds who laid the Internet's foundations, visits the Silicon Valley of India and grills the founders of the networking companies who have made millions from this fascinating new technology.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
Trip down memory lane September 7, 2007
SuperBK (The Mountains of North Carolina)
First, Cringley is great, and makes a great documentary. Howerver, years later, in 2007, this documentary is pretty hilarious. What a trip down memory lane before the apocalyptic meltdown of 2000. Its funny hearing, that Excite and Amazon are valued at over "1 billion dollars". I loved the history of how the Internet was actually created by DARPA. Definately worth watching.
Where's the DVD??? May 17, 2005
FJR Rider (Texas)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is an excellent historical overview of the Internet and the World Wide Web! NERDS 2.0.1 picks up right where TRIUMPH OF THE NERDS left off. Both documentaies are very interesting, informative and somewhat comical...from beginning to end!
Hopefully NERDS 2.0.1 will be released on DVD soon! I already own TRIUMPH OF THE NERDS on DVD and these two programs really go great together. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Great Entertainment and Education January 28, 2002
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fantastic view of a topic that has changed all of our lives. The video is very entertainig and a good source of information. Would recommend this to anyone wanting to learn more about the roots of the internet.
Vintage Internet August 2, 2001
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Parts of these tapes already look like the old Volkswagen in the Woody Allen movie "Sleeper." For instance, the students who started Excite are all caught in their gloriously self-centered success, which didn't last long, it turns out, but did stoke them each with millions.Cringely is eloquent, in words and in deeds. The shot of him driving in a convertible along a freeway, while holding forth about the internet as a big pipeline, is a great way to cast an image. His patient tracing of how the internet emerged from simple attempts to hook one computer to another, and get them to communicate meaningful information is also very well done, and penetrates to the level of the PhD thesis written in 1959 that laid out the binary math basis for it all in the first place.\ The tension between the hippie beginnings of the communitarian internet, and the later proprietary commercialization of the medium is also profiled, with subthemes like how to lose control of your company, played out in interviews with 3Com's Metcalfe, who also articulated "Metcalfe's law." These videos stand on their own feet, but also on the shoulders of the book, written by Stephen Segaller, who wrote it, amazingly, for PBS. So look, some good things can come out of PBS after all(!). Segaller's book is, as you might suspect, much more detailed, but only the video takes you to Microsoft's campus, or shows you the inventor of an early wireless internet, Norm Abramson, years later standing on a beach holding a surfboard with his current corporate logo plastered in dead-center. Perhaps another symbol of hippie-goes-Ferrari. The book and the video also touch on the fascinating history of Cisco, and the bitterness of former husband and wife Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack, toward their first V.C., Don Valentine. The video has Sandy sitting in front of her English country mansion, and also Len, speculating on the existence of sentient beings elsewhere in the universe. So most of these people were and still are complete nerds, and but for their work, we too would have to be nerds to use our computers. So thanks, nerds, for being nerds, so I don't have to be.
 High motivation and Detail December 29, 2000
Juan Carlos Ceron Fernandez (BOGOTA D.C. Colombia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a very exciting video about the origin, history, developments, success and failures of the Internet. It has good detail in the topics and companies that refers, but it does not touch every important(historical level) company in the net. Perhaps less time for "excite" and jokes, and more time to relevant companies and phenomena.
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