Made For TV movie, 2000. Directed by Martyn Burke. Running time: 94 minutes.
This movie (more or less) chronicles the rise of the personal computer, from the early eighties until the nineties. Although I'd like to give it crap because it's a TNT movie, it's actually very good. It stars Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs, and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. And now, having watched this movie several times since I first posted this writeup, I have to say: Hall does a wonderful job. There's, I don't know, an air of casual, imperceptible, subconscious arrogance to him in the latter half of the film that seems to fit just right.
Pirates is a somewhat factual account of the vast and fast expansion of Apple Computers and the Microsoft Corporation from nothing, into two of the largest computer-oriented firms in the world. A good portion of the plot is centred around Gates's relationship with Steve Jobs and Apple; in particular, the reverse engineering of Mac OS into Windows. At this point, the rivalry between Jobs and Gates comes to the fore.
The movie picks up a few years later, with Jobs back in the seat of power (after the splitting of Macintosh and Apple), and an apparent alliance with--but maybe ceasefire is a better term--between Gates and Jobs.
Also of note are the appearances of characters with whom any somewhat computer savvy person will know--names like Steve Wozniak and Steve Ballmer. Personally, I found it interesting to see a movie about people who are still alive and talked about (and fought over, flamed about, derided) this very day.