Hi Wirt & Greg :)
    Also writing from memory... Wasn't part of the "screw-up" related to the
contradictory directives given to HAL?  HAL was told two different things
causing him to become unstable?

    Knowing my memory I am probably completely off here ... again :) hehe

Art "Firewalls don't need a hearth? hehe" Bahrs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wirt Atmar" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 12:13 PM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: HAL-15 desktop supercomputer


> Greg asks:
>
> > How did HAL "screw up", in the sense meant by the author?
>
> Writing all of this from memory, HAL predicted a failure in the AE-35 unit
> mounted on the deep space telemetry antenna in four days. When the unit
was
> taken out of the antenna -- on HAL's recommendation -- and brought into
the
> main bay for analysis (using 1968 HP oscillosope probes, btw), one of the
two
> crewmen says, "I'll be damned if I can find anything wrong," and HAL
> responds, "It is puzzling."
>
> The far deeper problem that this failure by HAL to properly predict the
> failure implied was that no HAL 9000 computer had ever been known to make
a
> mistake -- and everyone, the crewmen, Houston control, and HAL himself
> realized the extremely serious implications of this mistake. While
problems
> with other, earth-bound HAL 9000's had been reported in the past, "This
kind
> of thing has cropped up in the past, but they've always been attributable
to
> human error," HAL said.
>
> The problem the crew now faced, given that HAL had clearly messed up, was
> that he ran every attribute of the ship's operation -- and their problem
was
> to engineer some method of disconnecting his higher brain functions while
> leaving the autonomic functions in place, without alarming HAL as to what
> they were planning on doing.
>
> It didn't work. HAL became alarmed.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
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