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67 lines
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67 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:08:13 -0700
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From: linden@eng.sun.com (Peter van der Linden)
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To: twchan@tennyson.lbl.gov, jrh@uiuc.edu
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Subject: Now HALd it right there, sonny
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Terry: I'd like to submit the analysis below as a justification for
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changing the FAQ line from:
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F. 'HAL' in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" was derived from letters for "IBM"
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to:
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U*.'HAL' in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" was derived from letters for "IBM"
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[...]
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-------------------------------
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Was "HAL" in 2001 named after wordplay on "IBM"?
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Peter van der Linden
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October 1994.
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I've seen a few recent claims that something must be true
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because the author/designer/writer said so. E.g. "Lucy in the Sky
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with Diamonds" isn't about LSD because John Lennon says so. "Babe Ruth
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candy wasn't named after Babe Ruth the baseball player because the
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candy company says so." The missing biscuits actually happened to Douglas
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Adams because he says so.
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I'd like to energetically refute this rather pathetic belief in the
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veracity of human nature. Certainly the claims of an author are one
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piece of evidence, but there is no particular reason why they should
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be accepted as gospel truth; consider them rather in the context of
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all pieces of evidence. This is what happens in courts of law every day.
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A few years ago, Terry Nation (writer of the Dr Who sci-fi show) gave one
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public and plausible claim for the origin of "Dalek". Late he more privately
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retracted it. Apparently he made the story up because he was sick of
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being asked about the origin.
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I'm reminded of this by recently discovering a file of old notes that
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I had collected about the 2001 computer HAL. A pervasive story is
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that HAL was so-named to indicate that he was one step ahead of IBM.
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Alphabetically "H" "A" "L" precede "I" "B" "M" by one letter.
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The author of 2001, Arthur C Clarke emphatically denies the legend
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in his book "Lost Worlds of 2001", claiming that "HAL" is an acronym
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for "Heuristically programmed algorithmic computer". Clarke even wrote
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to the computer magazine Byte to place his denial on record.
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But Clarke's protestations are unconvincing in the extreme. For one thing
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"Heuristically programmed algorithmic computer" is a contrived name that
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does not properly form the desired acronym. For another, most of the working
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drafts of the 2001 story had HAL named "Athena", and it would have remained
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so had not Clarke deliberately rechristened it. The chances of him
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randomly fastening on to the one name that mimics the worlds largest
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computer company are one in seventeen thousand.
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Why would Clarke deny it if it were true? I can think of several reasons:
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perhaps Clarke invented it as an in-joke that became too public, and he
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didn't want to risk offending IBM who had provided much technical help for
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the film. Perhaps, human nature being what it is, he is having an
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elaborate charade with us, as did George Plimpton with his fictitious
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cobra bite [recorded in Harpers Magazine earlier this year].
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Perhaps like Terry Nation, he just got sick of people asking about it.
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