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In other languages than English, HAL might have another name: for instance, in the French version of '' 2001 A Space Odyssey '', his name is stated as being CARL, for ''Cerveau Analytique de Recherche et de Liaison'' ("Analytic Research and Communication Brain"). However, the famous camera plates still read "HAL 9000". Some versions state that the name HAL was derived by a one letter shift (see Caesar Cipher ) from the name IBM , although this has been denied by both Arthur C. Clarke and his fictional character Dr. Chandra , who states that "by now, any idiot should know that HAL stands for ''Heuristic ALgorithmic''" (''2010''). HAL'S HISTORY HAL in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' In '''', after HAL appears to be mistaken about a fault in the spacecraft, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting his cognitive circuits. They believe that HAL cannot hear them, but are unaware that HAL is capable of lip reading. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL proceeds to kill Frank Poole while Poole is repairing the ship, as well as the other members of the crew who are in Suspended Animation by disabling life support systems for the suspended animation chambers the crew is placed in. Realizing what has occurred, astronaut David Bowman then shuts the machine down. HAL's central core is depicted as a room full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, we witness HAL's consciousness degrading. By the time HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song " Daisy Bell ", which is perhaps the most recognised scene in the film. This song was chosen because in 1962 Arthur C. Clarke was coincidentally visiting friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility at the time of a remarkable Speech Synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr who created one of the most famous moments in the history of Bell Labs by using an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer '' Vocoder '' recreated the song "Daisy Bell", with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews . Arthur C. Clarke was so impressed that he later used it in this climactic scene. Bell Labs: Where "HAL" First Spoke (Bell Labs Speech Synthesis website) HAL 9000 is also well known for a Chess Game he plays with Frank Poole, whose defeat is seen as an ominous foreshadowing to both the future events of the movie and the increasing dominance of machine over man. The book differs from the film in a number of details. # the book explains far more explicitly the causes of HAL's behavior. # in the film, HAL shuts Bowman out of the craft after Bowman attempts to retrieve Poole's body. In the book, Bowman stays within the ship and is forced to shut down HAL after HAL attempts to kill him by opening the ship's airlocks. HAL in ''2010: Odyssey Two'' In the sequel '' TMA-1 a secret. This contradiction created a " Hofstadter - Moebius Loop ," reducing HAL to Paranoia . The alien intelligences controlling the monoliths have grandiose plans for Jupiter, plans which place the ''Leonov'' in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan, which unfortunately requires leaving the ''Discovery'' and HAL behind, to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL sacrifices himself for the ''Leonov'' The details in the book and film are nominally the same, with one important exception——in the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated. In the book, it is revealed that his voice circuits were destroyed during the shutdown, forcing him to communicate through screen text. The session of keyboard/screen interaction between HAL and Dr. Chandra has a taste of SHRDLU , which both increases the realism of the scene, and gives an interesting insight of the perception of Artificial Intelligence at the time the book was written. HAL in ''2061: Odyssey Three'' and ''3001: The Final Odyssey'' In '''', Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith. In ''''. Halman helps Frank Poole infect the monolith (which it once served) with a Computer Virus ; as the primitive life in Jupiter's clouds were sacrificed to make Jupiter into a sun to warm Europa, it is feared that humanity would in turn be sacrificed for the new life on Europa. SAL 9000 HAL 9000 has at least one Earthbound twin, SAL 9000. SAL was used as a reference system for HAL; when the twin computer fails to predict any communications failure, Bowman and Poole begin to suspect HAL's reliability. SAL is clearly "female", and features similar camera plates like HAL, but the "eye" is blue. Dr. Chandra has a private terminal to SAL's mainframe in his office, and his influence causes her to develop a slightly Indian accent (''''). In the film version, SAL is voiced by Candice Bergen , who was credited only under a Pseudonym (as 'Olga Mallsnerd'). Before the Soviet-USA mission to retrieve ''Discovery'', Chandra uses her for a simulation of the possible effects that a prolonged "sleep" might have induced in HAL, code-named ''Project Phoenix''. When Dr. Chandra taunts SAL to guess the reason for the name, her display of culture makes it clear that SAL has access to some form of encyclopedic knowledge database. In the book ''2010,'' we learn that another ground-based HAL machine undergoes the same Psychosis that HAL does. THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING When the film ''2001'' was first screened in 1968 , the year 2001 was a long way away and a computer like HAL seemed quite plausible at the time. In the mid- 1960 s Computer Scientist s were generally optimistic that within a Generation or two we would have machines that could do "just about anything humans could do". Importantly, HAL is shown playing a game of Chess - in 1968, the greatest breakthrough in computer chess playing was 'hexapawn', as detailed in an edition of that year's Scientific American . A full chess algorithm was still considered science fiction, but within the realms of possibility, and even then an open ended possibility. No-one could predict that within as little as 5-10 years computers would be successfully challenging Grand Masters , but at that time for HAL to play chess, and win was seminal in driving the future direction of computer game playing AI . However, as 2001 approached it became clear that ''2001'''s predictions in computer technology were far fetched. Natural Language , Lip Reading , planning and Plain Common Sense in computers were still the stuff of Science Fiction . But ''2001'' also failed to predict many of the advances that would take place in computing by 2001 . The film's creators felt that as computers got more powerful, they would get bigger and bigger. HAL occupies much of the living area on Discovery. A thin laptop or notepad computer is alluded to in a few scenes where they are used to relay news broadcasts from Earth. Also, the film's portrayal of computer graphics are elegant, though minimalist compared to the graphics and visualization techniques available in 2001 . TRIVIA
CITED REFERENCES In Star Wars: Episode one, Anikan Skywalker is working in a space junkyard. As they walk in looking for parts, they pass one of the pods from 2001: A Space Oddysey. George Lucas had this, as well as other tributes to old space classics included throughout the movie. (There are also ET characters in the Imperial Senate). SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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