Conference 7.286::space

    	Try the MICLUS::SF Conference.  Press the KP7 or SELECT key
    to add SF to your Notebook.  Once in there, type the command
    DIR/TITLE=topicname to find Topics on 2001 and 2010.
    
    	Larry
    

    For the record, the voice of HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic
    computer) was provided by Canadian actor Douglas Rain. 

    A B C D E F G H I .....
    
    
    H A L
     I B M
    
    Must of been a coincidence?

    
    	Yeah.  This was mentioned in 2010 (I think).  Something about
    being one step ahead of IBM.  8).
    
    							-SK
    

    Arthur Clarke states in the book "The Making of 2001" many people
    had noticed the HAL/IBM "link".  Clarke says it was really just
    a coincidence.  IBM had leant a great deal of technical assistance
    in the making of 2001, and Clarke was somewhat embarassed to hear
    the "one step ahead of IBM" comment.
    

    The HAL 9000 aboard Discovery I was (is? will be?) one of three in
    existence, and according to the novel, was an IBM product.  The
    nameplate on the console (a clear view is provided in 2010) was a copy
    of the 1960s Control Data logotype, however. 

    What I would like to know is; what is SAL?  HAL is an acronym for
    *something*, can't remember.  If so, has anybody heard what SAL
    stands for?  BTW, SAL is the name of the computer that is supose
    to be a ground base duplicate of HAL in 2010.
    
    jim
    

    I just finished reading 2010 again.  According to Dr. Chandra (who
    should know) HAL stands for Heuristic ALgorithmic.  (Seems a little
    incomplete, but that's very close to what he said.)  I don't remember
    anything about what SAL was for.
    
    Burns
    

Article: 1857
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.news.movies,clari.tw.computers
Subject: Birth date for HAL -- computer from movie ``2001''
Date: 10 Jan 92 18:48:23 GMT
 
	URBANA, Ill. (UPI) -- Sunday marks the birthday of HAL, the
infamous computer in the movie ``2001: A Space Odyssey,'' in Urbana
and a professor says technology is lagging behind Arthur C. Clarke's
vision of a thinking machine. 

	In Clarke's book, HAL 9000 was a highly intelligent mass
killer aboard the Jupiter-bound spaceship Discovery and Stanley
Kubrick made a landmark movie about it in 1968. 

	``I became operational at the H.A.L. Plant in Urbana, Ill., on
the 12th of January, 1992,'' Hal said in the movie as astronaut David
Bowman rendered him inoperable. ``My instructor was Mr. Langley and he
taught me to sing.'' 

	HAL was inspired by a University of Illinois project known as
Illiac IV -- a massive parallel computer employing 64 processors.  The
computer, which was retired in the early 1970s, was used by NASA at
its Ames research center outside San Francisco. 

	HAL was supposed to be a problem-solving machine that could
make decisions.  Professor Dan Reed of the University of Illinois'
computer science department said it will take a ``qualitative
breakthrough'' before a HAL-like machine is developed. 

	``There are some ways in which the technology in the movie was
not a prediction of reality and there are some ways reality has
outstripped the movie,'' Reed said. 

	``Where reality outstripped the movie is in the kind of human-
computer interfaces portrayed in the movie.  Look at consumer
electronics and PCs.  Things are very different.  Service companies have
touch-sensitive tablets they can write on.  We have handwriting
recognition systems, at least a subset of handwriting.  There's about
to be an explosion in pen-based computing.'' 

	Reed said the movie accurately predicted the development of chess- 
playing programs ``equal to anyone short of world-class grand masters.'' 

	``(But) the notion of a computer system that's truly
intelligent is the Holy Grail of artificial intelligence,'' he said. 

	Reed said thinking computers are a long way off.  There is some
debate among experts over whether human intelligence must be fully
understood before scientists can find a way to mimic thought. 

	``Planes don't have to flap their wings to fly,'' he said.

	Reed said he feels about HAL the same way he feels ``every
time I see a 'Star Trek' movie.  I wish I lived in that future.  Reality
always proceeds at a slower pace.  That kind of exploration is very
difficult to make possible.'' 

	Clarke, who is ailing and lives in Sri Lanka, has said
HAL-like computers are inevitable because man is just ``an
intermediate stage in the development of real intelligence.'' 

	HAL originally was supposed to be called ATHENA and have a
female voice but Kubrick reportedly changed his mind and opted for HAL. 
[There was a female-voice computer named SAL in the 1984 sequel film,
2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT. - LK]