Re: Thought this was interesting

[Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM>"@raytheon.com>]

Robert A Duff wrote:

> Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM>"@raytheon.com> writes:
>
> > I believe it was named after Hal Laning, the author of MAC which it was
> > modeled after.
> > It was then named Hal/S for the shuttle version.
>
> Interesting.  I always thought it showed a bit of sense of humor -- to
> name a programming language for a spacecraft after the rogue computer in
> "2001, A Space Odyssey".
>
> - Bob

Yeah, I would like to believe that also since 2001 is my favorite of all
movies but,
alas they didn't have that much of a sense of humor.  It was also rumored that

Clark chose HAL by taking the previous letters in the IBM acronym but he has
said in interviews that he didn't do that - he just picked it at random.

Jerry

P.S.
for a little history of the language Hal/S and other such stuff, see:
http://www.unt.edu/UNT/departments/CC/Benchmarks/benchmarks_html/sepoct95/lunar.htm

--
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-- Jerry Petrey
-- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation (GPS/INS), Guidance, &
Control
-- Raytheon Missile Systems          - Member Team Ada & Team Forth
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