h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Computers In Science Fiction - A1007687
Author: Atlantic_Cable - U196159

A length article. Please fell free to criticise my spelling, I've done my best, but it's very long.

I have asked H2G2 for suggestions for other computers, but I think this is the list of most of the memorable ones.

If necessary to split, I think it should be split between films and TV/Books.

Films
2001, Alien, Terminator Movies, Red Planet, Alien, Flight Of The Navigator

TV/Books
Star Trek, ,Knight Rider, Andromeda, Red Dwarf, Quantum Leap, Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, Truckers, Diggers, Wings, Blake's 7, The Culture, Babylon 5, Discworld

As you say a comprehensive article. One think I notice immediately as a big Arthur C Clarke fan. There is no mention of the fact that he name HAL that by taking one letter back in the alphabet from the initials of computer giant IBM. Might be worth a mentions even if only as a footnoot.

Not to go back to the rest of this encylopedic article.

Eddie the ship board computer does have a back up personality. Female, motherly. This was activated by Zaphod before the crew disembarked on Magarathea in the Radio series.

Phew quite an article.

Orac may have been useless but at least he provided answers no matter how vague a lot quicker than Deep Thought.

I have got HAL -> IBM in there.... haven't I?

Yes, yes it's definately in there. I even link to IBM's site.

Whoops how did I miss that. It is there. Sorry

Great entry by the way. I've had a look at the other as well.

Orac wasn't useless- okay his future predictions may have been a little vague, but he had plenty of other uses- monitoring Federation transmissions, breaking Federation codes, taking over other computers... May be worth noting that he got his irritating personality from his creator, Ensor.

Knight Rider: I'm sure that in at least one episode KITT had an 'evil twin' - KATT, although I can't remember what the acronym stood for...

Red Dwarf: I think (but am by no means certain) that Holly was male on Red Dwarf, but female on Starbug. Can anyone verify that?

Truckers, Diggers, Wings: It should be nomes, rather than gnomes.

Discworld: Maybe worth mentioning that one of the 'in-jokes' is that Hex doesn't work if it doesn't have enough bugs in it... Also, it has an 'Anthill Inside' sticker And of course, Hex appears to be building itself: often completely new things appear in the morning, with no-one having a clue how they got there. Oh, and I'm sure there was a keyboard interface as well - I think it was the ArchChancellor who typed out 'Dryed Frogg Pils' (or whatever spelling he used) when Hex caught madness from the Bursar.

> Knight Rider: I'm sure that in at least one episode KITT had
> an 'evil twin' - KATT, although I can't remember what the acronym
> stood for...
KARR - Knight Automated Roving Robot. There was also KRO (Crow) but it only appeared in the very bad "Team Knight Rider" series.


> Red Dwarf: I think (but am by no means certain) that Holly was male
> on Red Dwarf, but female on Starbug. Can anyone verify that?

Holly was male, met the female Hilly from a parallel universe and changed to a female. He then changed back.

I've checked with my dictionary and "gnome" is the spelling of pixie like small creatures. "nome" is listed but has a different meaning. I will check with my books, when I can find them.

Yes, 'gnome' is the 'dictionary' spelling. 'Nome' however, is Pratchett's spelling.

There are a few problems with this entry. It starts with the words 'Computers in movies' but includes a few computers in books. If you want to include computers in literature you definitely have to have a few others, Heinlein especially has a few self aware ones. Asimov is important to of course, although he deals mostly with robots.
But then KITT is a kind of robot, and so are Banks' culture ships, and the ship in Flight of the Navigator.
I see you've tried to do something about this with your entries on contemporary movie computers and the entry on androids, but if you want to keep those links in you need to get them as well through peer review together with this. A few of your other links are also to unedited entries. For instance you should link to A455898 on Asimov's complete robot instead of the unedited one on the three laws.

All in all the separate sections of this entry are great, but I think you need to redo the framework.
Make a 'main' entry on Machine Intelligence and Computers in Fiction where you describe the various concepts, and follow that with the examples of computers in movies (without the separation between SF and contemporary, explain how this differs instead, and by the way Tron belongs under SF even though it's set in a contemporary setting, and so does the lawnmover man. And what about the Matrix.), books (You need more stuff here, Asimov, Heinlein, Gibson.), and TV series. Androids and Robots... etc.
That's my advice. Either much more, or much less. In either case you should take this one out of peer review while you work. Unless you disagree with me of course, it's not like my word is law. Even though it should be.

That's what else I was going to say! If you're going to include comupters from books, how can you not have something about Asimov's Multivac? In one story it even attempts to bring about it's own destruction!

I think this needs a lot more structure- breaking down into seperate enrties covering different types of computer, with more about the concept and the links between them, rather than just lists...

OK, I'll consider doing that, but first answer me a question (cos I sure don't know )

Where would I put Star Trek? Its TV and Film.

What about Hitch Hikers (Book and TV)?

I'll start on a new "offline" frame work and leave this entry here until I hear back from you.

Thanks for the input, I always appreciate it.

Oh yes! One more thing.

What should I call the seperate entries?

Computers In Science Fiction: TV
Computers In Science Fiction: Films
Computers In Science Fiction: Books
Androids In Science Fiction

Or something else?

I'd like them all to have a similar title.

Those names look good to me. I would put the ones that are in several formats in the one they originated in. So Marvin and Deep Thought go in Books; and Data and the Enterprise computer go in TV Series.

I/m not so sure about Tron, lawnmower man etc.

They are set in contemporary times. I realise they are a bit futuristic also, it's a grey area I think.

The reason the Matrix isn't is is that there's not computer, although now I think about it, the agents would count, they are thinking programs

OK Sci Fi fans, I've now built a basic framework to seperate the entry at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A1045766

Please be gentle, it's still a work in progress. The main entry in particular needs a lot more work.

I'll submit these all for review when I'm happier with them.