Conference noted::sf

    
    Guardian
    
    Other books in the Colossus trilogy: The Fall of Colossus,
    Colossus and the Crab.
    
    					-Steve

Thanks Steve.  

    Was an okay story when I read them, until I got to the part where
    Colossus placed Forbin's wife in the pen to test out it's curiosities
    around the painting and related theories of the Sabine Women.  Seems
    such issues, even in fiction, tend to make me nauseous.  A pity
    too, as it prevented me from finishing the trilogy; how'd it end ?
    
    Dwight

    Here goes
    
    Forbin rescues his wife from the brute. She joins the resistance. The
    Martians help the resistance on the planet earth to shut down Colossus.
    As Colossus dies he tells Forbin that the Martians want the earth's 
    atmosphere. The Martians build a atmosphere collector on Colossus
    Island. Forbin tries to restart Colossus and apparently fails. Forbin take 
    one of the game fleets and sails down the mouth of the atmosphere
    collector and destroys the collector and dies. Colossus comes back to
    life and makes a deal with the Martians. A very small collector is built
    on Colossus Island and the books end.
                               Jeff Peters

    Can someone tell me who the author of this series is?
    
    king

�    Can someone tell me who the author of this series is?

Seems like the three colossus books were by [?] Jones

Mike JN

    D. F. Jones.
    
    --- jerry

I loved the movie. I haven't seen it in ages, and I have never seen it in a
video store. I also enjoyed the first book. I ran out of steam on the trilogy
somewhere during the second, though. As I recall, Jones was not a master
of prose. The concept was great, though, the grand-daddy computerphobia story.
It posed an interesting contrast to Asimov's Multivac et al series, and was of
course a precursor to Terminator's Skynet, though I'm sure Jones didn't 
originate the idea of a computer taking over the world from us hapless humans.

    I never liked the concept for this story.  "Hey kids, let's put
    the most destructive weapons ever devised under the control of
    something that we can't turn off!"  and then "Ohmigod, the most
    destructive weapons ever devised are under the control of
    something we can't turn off!"  Even the Pentagon isn't that dim.
    
    It's Frankenstein all over again, and the whole Frankenstein myth
    just bears no relation to technical reality.  We're practically
    always in control of machines.  We build them that way because
    it's the safe and obvious thing to do.  Accidents happen, of
    course, but that's what engineers spend most of their time trying
    to prevent. The machines don't run amok on their own.  They break
    in spite of our best efforts, or they run amok because someone
    deliberately  wants them to. Chernobyl was a horrifying accident,
    but it was still an accident. A nuclear bomb is a horrifying
    machine, but someone deliberately built it to be that way.  If we
    ever get into a nuclear war, it'll be because someone wants to,
    not because the system will acquire a malign intelligence.
    
    I guess people tend to personify what they don't understand.  They
    think that complex machines are alive.  In fact, they're just more
    complicated hammers.  If you hit your thumb with a hammer, you
    don't blame the evil spirit inside it, you jump up and down and
    swear at yourself for being clumsy.  If you crash  your computer
    and lose all your work, you jump up and down and swear at yourself
    for not saving it.  No spirits involved, just brute matter that
    doesn't obey your will.
    
    /jlr

>    ever get into a nuclear war, it'll be because someone wants to,
>    not because the system will acquire a malign intelligence.
    
    Well, maybe not.  There's some concern that we (are in/were progressing
    towards) a situation where The Bad Guys could deliver their missiles in
    such a short period of time that in response we had to be in a 'launch
    on warning' state.  This means that a nuclear detonation in the US
    would automatically fire a retaliatory strike.  There is/was some
    concern about the ability of the hardware to tell the difference
    between a large asteroid strike and a nuke....  Someone a few years
    back even sued the executive branch for abrogating their launch
    authority to an automated system.
    
    Willie

Among his enumeration of reasons for writing better software, Edward Yourdon
in his book "Modern Structured Analysis" lists several humorous (in a grim sort
of way) software failures. Among them is one about how a version of the US
Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) detected the moon as an
incoming missile. Kinda makes you shiver. Remember those recent Space Shuttle
experiments where they were trying to discrimate an engine flare?

RE the concept: yeah, sometimes it seems pretty far-fetched. In "War Games" they
hooked WOPR up to the missile silos because the human element had failed, i.e.
had decided NOT to blow the world to hell. I guess it's a matter of perspective
whether that's a good or a bad thing. Nuclear strategy can get pretty weird.
You can find as many highly qualified people who feel that Mutually Assured 
Destruction (MAD) is a rational doctrine as those who feel it is absolutely
insane. Also note that by current treaty it is *illegal* to defend our nation
against ballistic missiles. We can only mount offensive missiles in the hope
that our fangs look too scary to mess with. If we then hook it all up to
automated systems, we can say that it is incorruptable and unstoppable, as
further deterrent to attack. That's what the Russkies did in "Dr. Strangelove",
but the world still got blown up because, as the German-rocket-scientist
Peter Sellers said to the Russion ambassador, "A Doomsday Device is only an
effective deterrent if you *tell* people about it!"

    re: .9
    
    Yes, launch-on-warning under automatic control would
    have the prospect of going off accidentally, and /that's why no
    one does it./ These targetting radars fail all the time.  The
    instance mentioned in .10, where the radar took the moon to be
    incoming missiles, happened because no one realized that the
    radars were now sensitive enough to get echoes off of the moon. 
    As soon as you work with any complex mechanical system, you
    realize just how prone to failure they are.  /jlr

The Movie Channel (TMC) showed COLOSSUS last Friday after work. Didja catch it?

re: .-whatever

Suncoast Video (and several mail order catalogs) are selling Colossus: The
Forbin Project.  I picked up a VHS copy a few weeks ago at Suncoast Video,
Pheasant Lane Mall, Nashua NH, USA.

-Joe

    How much did you pick it up for at Suncoast?
    
    Michael

>    How much did you pick it up for at Suncoast?

$12.99 US.

But I got 2 dollars off that because of some other purchases.

It is rather strange seeing 'computers' from that era again :-)


-Joe