Kubrick Komputer Joke

[John Verity]

Everyone knows by now that HAL is IBM displaced by one letter. But I 
understand there is yet another sly insider computer joke in "2001":
  IBM Corp. was hired as a consultant to the movie, and its name shows up 
throughout--on all those highly authentic-looking video monitors in 
cockpits, etc. Seems that company also got in a dig at a then-major 
competitor, Burroughs Corp. 
  When Dave accuses HAL of being troubled, HAL replies something like 
this: "No, Dave. I never make mistakes. I'm unit No. 3 of the HAL-9000 
series, produced in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois. ...."
   That university campus is, in fact, where some of the earliest 
parallel-processing supercomputers, called Illiac, were built, in close 
collaboration with Burroughs. Indeed, I think B. took some of Illiac's 
technologies and commercialized them. 
   In the '60s, Burroughs' machines in particular--even more, perhaps, 
than those of the other "Seven Dwarfs" (Control Data, Honeywell, Sperry 
Univac, RCA, GE, etc.) -- were superior in design and capability than 
IBM's famous and market-dominating System/360s. But it was Microsoft all 
over again, and IBM won the market hands down--and some 20 anti-trust 
suits, too.

John






John W. Verity ... 140 Eighth Ave. 5R ... Brooklyn, NY ... 11215
           718.622.5680  ...  jverity at mindspring.com