Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999

1999 in film

The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...

 made-for-television film directed by Martyn Burke

Martyn Burke

Martyn Burke is a journalist, novelist, screenwriter and director from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His career got started when he began writing and directing documentaries for CBC Television...

 and based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. The film documents the impact on the development of the personal computer

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 of the rivalry between Apple Computer and Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

. It spans the time period of the early 1970s

1970s

File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

 to 1997, when Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

 (Noah Wyle

Noah Wyle

Noah Strausser Speer Wyle is an American film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as Dr. John Truman Carter III in the Medical drama ER. He has also played Steve Jobs in the 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley and Flynn Carsen in The Librarian franchise...

) and Bill Gates

Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...

 (Anthony Michael Hall

Anthony Michael Hall

Michael Anthony Hall , known professionally as Anthony Michael Hall, is an American actor, film producer and director who starred in several teen-oriented films of the 1980s. Hall began his career in commercials and on stage as a child, and made his screen debut in 1980...

) develop a partnership after Jobs returns to Apple Computer.

It aired on Turner Network Television

Turner Network Television

Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...

 on April 6 & 7, 1999.
The film opens with the creation of the 1984 commercial for Apple Computer

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

, which introduced the first Macintosh.