The Halt And Catch Fire Poster Channels IBM And Battles For CTRL

Following up on the trailer for AMC intriguing period drama Halt and Catch Fire, we now have a look at the key art for the series, which stars Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, Kerry Bishe and Toby Huss. It looks like AMC's channeling IBM's logo with the font, and playfully substituting "control" for the more commanding "CTRL" as it notes that "The Battle For CTRL Begins."

Halt and Catch Fire comes from Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers and is set in 1983, about a year after IBM practically cornered the market in personal computing with the release of their first PC. For those who aren't familiar with it, for comparison's sake, here's a look at the IBM logo...

The 10-episode drama centers on a renegade trio (a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy) as they attempt to build a computer that could change the future. That apparently involves taking advantage of some fatal flaw in the IBM PC design, which makes personal computing anyone's game.

While this series is set during a real and memorable time period in the era of personal computer development, Halt and Catch Fire is a fictional story. Lee Pace plays Joe MacMillan, a former IBM executive who wants to reverse-engineer IBM's flagship product. He enlists the help of Scoot McNairy's character Gordon Clark, "a once-great engineer who dreams of creating a revolutionary product while trying to manage his initially unsupportive wife, Donna (Kerry Bishe)." And Mackenzie Davis plays Cameron Howe, "a volatile prodigy who puts her future in jeopardy to join MacMillan's rogue PC project."

While the poster goes totally-tech-80s with its design, the trailer takes things in a more pop-80s direction, complete with Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" set as the music...

The element of risk-taking is played up nicely in the trailer, adding an intense almost thriller tone to the drama. It'll be interesting to see how Halt and Catch Fire looks when the series premieres Sunday, June 1 at 10:00 p.m. ET on AMC. As you'll note, that's Mad Men's current timeslot, but that AMC period drama will have wrapped up the first half of its finale season by that point.