January 12th: HALday

Halday - birthday of the computer in 2001: A Spce Odyssey

1. In the film 2001:A Space Odyssey, HAL became operational on 12 January 1997 at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois as production number 3.
2. HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.
3. Douglas Rain was the voice of HAL which was dubbed onto the actual film. During rehearsals, Kubrick asked Stefanie Powers to supply the voice of HAL 9000 so the actors had something to react to, as he had not yet decided whose voice to use for the final soundtrack. On the set, British actor Nigel Davenport provided a voice for HAL.
4. In the French-language version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL's name is CARL, Cerveau Analytique de Recherche et de Liaison (Analytic Brain for Research and Communication), however, the labels on the computer still read "HAL 9000".
5. Although it is often conjectured that the name HAL was based on a one-letter shift from the name IBM, this has been denied by both the author of the original book, Arthur C Clarke, and director Stanley Kubrick.
6. HAL is listed as the 13th-greatest film villain in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains.
7. HAL can lip read.
8. The song Daisy Bell (Bicycle built for Two), which HAL sings at the end was the first song to be sung by a computer, an IBM 704 in 1961.
9. Dr Chandra character also created a female counterpart for HAL, the SAL 9000, but it is not known what the S stood for.
10. A spoof of HAL, the HAL 9001, appeared in Super Mario Brothers. It was a computerised pizza machine.

Photo: An Archetypal Dwarf Galaxy: ESO/M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit