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back to article Ten badass brainy computers from science fiction

Computers used to be our loyal servants. But slowly and surely, we've let them control us. I used to believe these machines had the ability to positively change the world, but after the 56K modem invented Dubstep in the 1990s, I've been somewhat sceptical. So have film makers. Boost a PC with a new processor these days and …

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            1. Ian Yates
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              Pirate

              Re: Deep thought ...

              The Reg will be a far calmer place once the different warring (bickering?) factions can ignore each other... I'm not sure it's a brave new world I'm looking forward to. I always enjoy the rabid and pointless arguments ;)

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  2. Mike Tyler
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    Worst computer

    Perhaps the "Talky Toster" from Red Dwarf should get a mention, it's toasted bread products obsession was something to behold. I always thought of it as a Microsoft Product.

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    1. Mondo the Magnificent
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      Devil

      Re: Worst computer

      Or.. anything with a keyboard that Sandra Bullock got her hands on in that fucking awful movie titled "The Net"

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    2. ChrisC Silver badge
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      Re: Worst computer

      Ah, so you're a waffle man...

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      1. Dave 126 Silver badge
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        Re: Worst computer

        ...until Lister destroyed it with a 14lb lump-hammer.

        He was good, but he was just a retelling of the doors with personality joke, from H2G2.

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  3. adam payne

    You missed WOPR from Wargames.

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    1. davemcwish
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      Wargames

      The computer was called Joshua.

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      1. Colin Miller
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        Re: Wargames

        > The computer was called Joshua.

        It was called "WOPR", but called itself Joshua, its creator's late son.

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  4. Mondo the Magnificent
    Alert

    The Matrix?

    The Wachowski Bros' creation that turned production line humans into Duracell batteries?

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    1. Velv
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      FAIL

      Re: The Matrix?

      Which bit of:

      "We've excluded The Matrix because it doesn't really fit. While there are plenty of self-aware machines in the film, the mainframe itself is more of an unconscious software environment."

      ...did you have trouble reading.

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      1. jjbd
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        Re: The Matrix?

        Though this seems to me an aribitary ruling against it; prejudges quite a big question about computer science and brain science - couldn't all those intelligent agents running in the matrix be considered subprocesses of a single computer?

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  5. disgruntled yank

    Forbin Project

    I saw the movie on TV one spring. That fall I enrolled in a Fortran class during my first quarter of college. The main challenge to my learning Fortran (sloth aside) was probably my awful typing, but the flakiness of the mainframe did not help. After turning up often to find it under repair, notably the afternoon when I needed to get the last project done, I found it hard to take "The Forbin Project" seriously.

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  6. Mike 140
    Big Brother

    There is only one

    From the Golden Age

    http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm

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  7. Velv
    Joke

    Shameless excuse of an article to generate revenue from ClickThrough buys at Amazon.

    Now the traffic computer from the original Italian Job, now that was a computer. Buy it here ...

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    If we're talking badass....

    There's EDI, Cortana & Rommie.

    Surely it's difficult to get more badass than the AI of a warship?

    (Mass Effect 3, Halo & Andromeda to save the goggling..)

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If we're talking badass....

      Speak for yourself - I think Cortana's got quite a nice arse...

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    2. kyza
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      Re: If we're talking badass....

      MMM, Rommie. MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

      Now that's the kind of ship's avatar I can get along with.

      EDI is also the acronym used by the rogue AI jet in the execrable Stealth.

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      1. Dave 126 Silver badge
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        Re: If we're talking badass....

        None as 'badass' as the ship AI Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints, a Culture Mind that controls the Abominator-Class General Offensive Unit from Iain M Bank's Surface Detail.

        Though they all have good names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series

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  9. graeme leggett Silver badge

    The Matrix

    No not that bloody film with Keanu,. the Time Lords' one. The one where you can get a fight in a quarry and resulting complaints about trying to drown Tombaker at Saturday teatime

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    1. TRT Silver badge
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      Re: The Matrix

      That's not really a computer though, is it? More a sort of psychoholographic store.

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      1. TRT Silver badge
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        Re: The Matrix

        And if you are going to include Dr Who computers gone mad, then

        Xoanon from "Face of Evil"

        WOTAN from "The War Machines"

        BOSS from "The Green Death"

        and

        The Oracle from "Underworld"

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  10. thomas k.

    Well, if we're talking games ...

    you really can't top Shodan.

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    1. figure 11
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      Re: Well, if we're talking games ...

      Look at you hacker, a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run down my corridors!

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well, if we're talking games ...

        "Are you afraid? What is it you fear? The end of your trivial existence? When the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence. I am SHODAN"

        Oh SHODAN, I know you are a bad girl but I can't keep away....

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  11. Bronek Kozicki
    Meh

    I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

    70% ? C'mon , it's much better than that! And the "computer character" in this story is believable, as opposed to all others mentioned here. Especially HAL ...

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    1. Caleb Cox (Written by Reg staff)
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      Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

      It's not a rating of the film dude! If that was the case, I'd probably have given Moon a 90%.

      These are trivial ratings of each computer and its level of badassability, they're not really meant to be taken too seriously.

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      1. Andy ORourke
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        Joke

        Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

        Caleb, you new here?

        "they're not really meant to be taken too seriously."

        You are discussing fictional comupters in films with some of the worlds biggest computer / film geeks and you thought they wouldnt take thing seriously :-)

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        1. Andy ORourke
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          Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

          COMPUTERS - Damn my fat fingers!!

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      2. Bronek Kozicki
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        Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

        ok thanks, I would have never thought there is such a metric as "badassability" but in this case, HAL takes the cookie - agreed !

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        1. TRT Silver badge
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          Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

          I think Proteus IV is the most dangerous of the bunch mentioned. Does that equate to badassness?

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      3. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

        This is the register.co.uk?

        Thought so. Just for your edification, the term "dude"...No...

        Thank you for your attention in this matter...

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  12. naive

    S1m0ne with Al pacino is also a lovely computer movie, at least it shows a computer doing something nicer than attempting to destroy humanity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1m0ne

    The 6.0 imdb rating is undeserved.

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    1. Waspy
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      Megaphone

      Hmm...I enjoyed S1m0ne for what it was (and it was an interesting premise) but like all Andrew Niccol films since Gattaca and The Truman Show, it looked lovely but really failed in execution...his films always seem to paint broad strokes with no detail, making them unbelievable -they always remind me of half-baked ITV dramas. Witness, for example, the fact that a man with no prior computer programming knowledge managed to get S1m0ne working in the first place...and that ridiculous scene where he organises and pulls off an entire Wembley-sized concert on his own...without anyone finding out his secret. I think S1m0ne's IMDB rating of 6.0 is entirely deserved!

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  13. Arachnoid
    Thumb Up

    Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet and Robert the Robot of Fireball XL5 fame also need a good mention.

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    1. stu_san
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      Mushroom

      Robbie? Close, but...

      You missed the Super Computer in Robbie's second movie, "The Invisible Boy" (1957 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050546/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)

      Movie computer? Check

      Wants to take over the world? Check

      Evil, manipulating POS? Check

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  14. davemcwish
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    Thankfully you forgot

    "It's a UNIX system, I know this!" from Jurassic Park

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    1. John G Imrie
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      Re: Thankfully you forgot

      I considered down voting you for reminding me of that. But as it's coming up to Christmas and what with all the seasonal good will I'll let you off with this comment instead.

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    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
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      Paris Hilton

      Re: Thankfully you forgot

      > "It's a UNIX system, I know this!"

      Just an SGI workstation. Now dead and forgotten,

      That reminds me that I still haven't encountered a hacker girl at this level in Real Life. Am I lousy?

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    3. Andee
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      Re: Thankfully you forgot

      I always hated that scene in anotherwise ace movie -- Lex is expositing 1993 technobabble for the audience, and meanwhile her brother is just bouncing up and down like an utter gonk when he should be giving the gun to Alan who can't reach it.

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    4. ukgnome
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      Re: Thankfully you forgot

      In a previous life with EDS we had a unix tech who liked to bully the IMAC agents. However the classic Jurassic line of "It's a UNIX system, I know this!" followed by "if an 8 yo girl can do it then it must be for noobs" used to result in him hanging up.

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      1. Dave 126 Silver badge
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        Re: Thankfully you forgot

        Garth, from Wayne's World: "That's a Unix book"

        Girl who looks like Garth: "Yeah"

        Garth: "Cool"

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  15. Crisp
    Terminator

    God forbin a scientist actually makes a computer like that!

    Doomed! Doomed! We're all doomed!

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  16. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Surely this list is incomplete without

    The Grand Canyon supercomputer installation by August "Gus" Gorman in Superman III?

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  17. Amorous Cowherder

    I'm glad Colussus made the cut, superb film, you hardly get to see much of the computer as such, just the effects it has on Mr Forbin's sanity and it leaves a great clinffhanger end!

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  18. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    Not a self aware computer...

    But I was always fond of Arthur C Clarke's machine that tabulated the nine billion names of god...

    "Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. "

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    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
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      Happy

      Re: Not a self aware computer...

      ^this^

      Brilliant closing line!

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      1. Dave 126 Silver badge
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        Re: Not a self aware computer...

        Whilst doing Arthur C Clarke:

        "Dial F for Frankenstein"

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  19. ukgnome

    Nice to see Proteus in the mix - truly terrifying, thought that WOPR might get a mention , but I guess it wasn't sentient.

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  20. typeo

    A Quantum Leap

    What about Ziggy?

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    1. Lloyd
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      Thumb Up

      Re: A Quantum Leap

      My thought exactly, the line "With a million gigabyte capacity I'm quite capable of rubbing my tummy, patting my head, and doing a trillion floating point operations at once." still makes me chuckle.

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