[GreenKeys] My experiences and questions

[Douglas W. Jones]

On May 7, 2009, at 4:58 PM, John D. Kopke wrote:

> BTW,I made a incredible discovery. What are the odds that HAL  
> Communications and
> Hal from 2001, A Space Odyssey are both made in Urbana ,Illinois .  
> THEY ARE!!!!!

HAL Communications was named after HAL from 2001, quite  
deliberately.  HAL, the
computer, was made in Urbana because, in the mid 1960's, Urbana was  
the center
of the supercomputer universe, with ILLIAC 2 recently decommissioned,  
ILLIAC 3
still under construction (it was never finished) and ILLIAC 4 in the  
planning.
These computers were extraordinary machines, for their time,  
particularly ILLIAC 4,
and captured the imagination of Arthur C. Clark.

Clark and Kubrik's movie, in turn, provided a name for a small startup
in Urbana.  Asking about the odds is not meaningful in this context  
because it
is not a cincidence.

		Doug Jones
		jones at cs.uiowa.edu