Computers that Never Really Were Quiz

Answer: HAL 9000

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." With these words, the HAL 9000 computer makes plain its intent to kill all of the humans on the Discovery. HAL 9000 stands for "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic" computer. It is the shipboard AI responsible for the ship's operation including life support. As the sole surviving astronaut removes HAL's higher brain functions, it ceases to act as a sentient being and sings the song "Daisy Bell" which it was taught in its "infancy": "Daisy, Daisy. Give me your answer do! I'm half crazy, All for the love of you!"

Answer: Colossus and Guardian

The dystopic novel and film describe a computer designed and built by Dr. Charles Forbin to control the nuclear weapons of the United States of America. The computer is named Colossus. Colossus finds Guardian, a similar parallel supercomputer designed and built by the Soviet Union.

The two computers join to save the world from itself. Jones wrote two sequels: "The Fall of Colossus" (1974) and "Colossus and the Crab" (1977). No spoilers here.

Answer: Mycroft Holmes

Manuel Garcia "Mannie" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician, discovers that the HOLMES IV ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV") computer running the lunar colony has become sentient and has a sense of humour. Apparently, when the circuitry of the computer reached a number of "neuristors" equal to the number of neurons in a human brain, it became self-aware. Mannie named it Mycroft Holmes, after Sherlock Holmes' brother, but it also answers to Adam Selene, Simon Jester, and Michelle.

Heinlein's novel won the Hugo Award for the best science fiction novel of 1967.

Answer: Deep Thought

Deep Thought was designed and built to answer just one question. Two programmers, Lunkwill and Fook, posed the question on Great Turning-On Day. Deep Thought replied it would "have to think about it" and proceeded to cogitate for 7.5 million years. Then descendants of the original programmers -- Phouchg and Loonquawl -- were there to receive the answer on the Day of the Answer.

The answer was 42. Deep Thought proposed building another computer to discover the question.

Answer: Red Queen

In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" it says "in this place it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." This is known as the Red Queen Principle, so called by Leigh Van Valen, an evolutionary biologist, in 1973. Van Valen's hypothesis is that a species needs to be in constant change in order to keep up with competing species which are also themselves always changing.

This principle relates to "Resident Evil" (2002) in that the premise of the film is the creation of a T-virus to exterminate most of humanity to make room for an elite group of survivors who would rule the Earth.

They are aided by a supercomputer called Red Queen. The interface with the computer is a hologram of the daughter of one of the inventors, named Alice.

Answer: Holly

The computer on the spaceship Red Dwarf is a character in the series. The character's gender is slightly challenging: Holly was male and played by Norman Lovett in Series I, II, VII, VIII and XII; Holly was female and played by Hattie Hayridge in Series III, IV and V. All that is seen of Holly is a head without a body on a computer screen; the shift in gender was explained as "a head sex change." Holly can also be downloaded to Dave Lister's wristwatch or to the chest display on the robot Kryten.

The computer's IQ was measured at 6000 but, after three million years with no one to talk to, it has become "a bit peculiar" due to cyber-senility.

Answer: Tony Stark / Ironman

Friday is an artificial intelligence which originally ran all of the systems in Tony Stark's home but which he uploaded to his Iron Man armour. The programme was developed in C++ and its particulars are secret. Her name is derived from an older slang term "Girl Friday" for a female general assistance and from Robinson Crusoe's companion in the novel. She "appears" in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," "Captain America: Civil War," "Spider-Man: Homecoming," "Avengers: Infinity War," and "Avengers: End Game." And she speaks with the loveliest Irish accent.

Answer: Kurt Vonnegut

EPICAC was based on the real ENIAC computer. ENIAC was switched on four years and nine months before Kurt Vonnegut described EPICAC in a short story in "Welcome to the Monkey House" (1968). The fictional EPICAC also figures in his novel "Player Piano" (1952).

The computer's name is inspired by syrup of ipecac, an emetic medicine used to purge orally-swallowed poisons. EPICAC, which was made by the government to solve the problems leading to war, becomes self aware and falls in love.

Answer: Discworld

The "computer" Hex appears in about ten of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. It is a series of glass tubes through which ants march. This is surrounded by an apparatus of male sheep skulls (RAM). It was started by "initializing the GBL" which stood for Great Big Lever. Using magic, Hex built itself into an electronic computer (which its operators could not understand).

It sends its operators puzzling messages, e.g. "+++Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++"

Answer: no name given

The unnamed Duotronic computer voiced by Majel Barrett was never given a personal name. Captain Kirk simply addressed her as "Computer" which seems awfully impersonal. The computer on-board the Enterprise (NCC-1701) was designed by Doctor Richard Daystrom and installed at the San Francisco Fleet Yards in San Francisco, California.