Working With HAL 9000’s Distant Cousin
Oh, my goodness… Colours! Please forgive the distraction. It’s just that colours don’t very often appear in these parts, but let’s forget about that. While taking av few moments off work this afternoon, I watched 2010 on TCM (Turner Classic Movies), offering another glimpse of predecessor 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000.
Now, let’s be clear on one thing: Peter Hyam’s 2010 (by some dubbed 2010: Odyssey 2 or 2010: The Year We Make Contact), was nowhere near Kubrick’s original, which, in its entirety was a sight for sore eyes. And remember: It premièred in 1968. However, as always, I digress. I caught a glimpse of HAL 9000’s keyboard again, you see, which layout reminded me a lot of the Genigraphics computer graphics systems we used back in the early eighties, hardware courtesy of DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). It wasn’t, of course, but I’d be surprised if the keyboard wasn’t from DEC. The computers, originally equipped with floor-to-ceiling CPU’s were first made for NASA’s space shuttle programme, so there’s definitely a link in there somewhere. By the way: the workstation shown here looks exactly, and I mean exactly like my own workplace for the better part of the eighties. All of our offices looked more or less the same, see, I just never realised how much.
Oh well. Back to HAL. Did you know he even spoke German?
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With the sad news of A C Clarke’s recent death in mind as well…
You know, it’s funny really, how I wrote this piece — unaware of Clarke’s demise, KEE, only moments later to learn that he’d left us.
I have to be honest with you, though: I never read the book — any of his writings, for that matter. My fascination for 2001: A Space Odyssey lies in Kubrick’s craftsmanship. I can’t say, in all honesty, that the story, as such, appealed to me, but the beauty of it… Now, there’s something to admire, to revel in!
Stanley Kubrick’s particular sense of aesthetics, like Tim Burton’s, Akiro Kurosawas’, Jim Jarmusch’s and David Lynch’s (to mention but a few), made all the difference.
I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey some time during the mid-seventies, in my early teens, at which point I finally also got to see A Clockwork Orange. Both left the susceptible young Petterson seriously and permanently awestruck.