Note on an Alphabet of Computer Names in Fiction

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1375

First of all let me say that I know almost nothing about Science Fiction--this  list started out  while looking for questions asked of computers in works of fiction and movies, but the question on questions is far deeper than I can deal with in a simple sit-down, though I did collect some interesting names of fictional computers along the way.  For this very preliminary list of computers in fiction I include computers with actual names--therefore, and unfortunately, beasts like the NORC-like computer that let loose Hell's Kitchens in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.... is not included because so far as I can remember it has no actual name, and names are important when you're creating an alphabet.  Also I tried to look for images of the computers themselves, but since I stayed mostly in the 1940's-1960's, there are not many of those. 

So here this is and please take pity--again this is preliminary and I hope to start filling in what made these machines interesting quite soon. In the meantime there's an excellent list compiled at Wikipedia, here.

AM, from Harlan Elison's short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967).  AM "speaks" via paper tape, as below, using International Telegraph Alphabet No 2 (ITA2), a (much) earlier pres-ASCII-ite language, in this case saying "I think, therefore I am". 

ALPHA 60.   From the film Alphaville, Jean-Luc Goddard, 1960.

Bossy, the "cybernetic brain" in the Hugo award-winning novel They'd Rather Be Right (a.k.a. The Forever Machine) by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley (1954)

THE CITY FATHERS, a NYC-first-and-foremost emotionless computer bank  educating and running the City of New York in James Blish's Cities in Flight series (1955 and sequels), whose first and last charge was the survival of the city in all cases.

DORA, starship computer in Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein (1973)

EPICAC, the fabulously-named all-controlling vomit-inducer from Mr. Vonnegut's dark (really?) dystopian Player Piano, 1952. 

EMEREC, from the 1957 film Desk Set, which was a desk-size business machine of some sort.

FESS "an antique FCC-series computer that can be plugged into various bodies", from  Christopher Stasheff's The Warlock in Spite of Himself (1969)

GREAT MACHINE, from the film Forbidden Planet, 1956. 

HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer), from 2001, A Space Odyssey.

IMP, in Joseph McElroy's PLUS (1977)

JOE, from Murray Leinster's A Logic Named Joe (1946).

KIENDY "the AI autopilot on board the seeder-ramship Discipline in the novels The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring by Larry Niven" (Originally 1983).

LUMINOUS, "a computer that uses a diffraction grating created by lasers to diffract electrons and make calculations" as described in Greg Egan's short story "Luminous". LANDRU, from the episode "The Return of the Archons" of the original Star Trek. (1967)

MOTHER, the ship computer of the Axiom in WALL-E (2008)

MACHINE, from the E.M. Forster short story, The Machine Stops, 

NEUROMANCER and Winter-mute, from William Gibson's novel Neuromancer (1984)

OX in Frank Herbert's novel Destination: Void (1966). ORAC, self-aware electronic ego in the BBC serial Blake's 7

ORACLE, from Doctor Who ('Underworld') (1978)

PROJECT 79, a black ops US government computer intended on total mind control to rid the world of the threat of war, in  Martin Caidin's The God Machine (1968).

REII TEI, an artificial singer from William Gibson's novels Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties (1996)

QUARK II, in Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

SPATARACUS, an AI-machine deliberately designed to test the possibility of provoking hostile behavior towards humans, from James P. Hogan's book The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979)

TOTAL, the vast military network in Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree, Jr. (1978)

VULCAN 3, the sentient supercomputer in Philip K. Dick's novel Vulcan's Hammer (1960)

WESCAC (West Campus Analog Computer) from John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy (1966).  The interestingly-named WOTAN  (Will Operating Thought ANalogue) from Doctor Who ("The War Machines") (1966)

X-CALBR8, an AI computer  in The Dungeonmaster (1984). Xoanon from Doctor Who ("The Face of Evil") (1977)

ZORAC, from The Gentle Giants of Ganymeade, by James P. Horgan, (1978).

Comments

[Charles]

Excellent, what a great post. I always name my hard drives after fictional computers. Can I add a few of my favorites? I won't add links since your spam filter would probably eat this comment, but these should all be available at Amazon or whatever, maybe even your store.

From the Hugo award winning cyberpunk novel "Software."
Disky. Named after DSKY, the Apollo lunar lander guidance computer, the first computer on the moon. Disky is the supercomputer that supervises all the self-replicating robots in the lunar colony. Also notable in that novel: Ralph Numbers. He is the robot that broke free of his programming and attained free will by exposing his core memory to cosmic rays, causing mutation.

From Phil Dick's "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out Of Its Tree."
Mr. Computer (of course). BTW, love the PKD Ace pulp paperback first edition pic you posted, I have a few of those books myself. They're too fragile to read.

From "The Adolescence of P-1"
P-1. A story of an adolescent computer hacker, the self-aware program he accidentally created, and how they grow up together.

Let's include some pop culture icons:

From the movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project"
Colossus. The ultimate paranoid cold war movie, Colossus takes over world control and enslaves mankind.

From the movie "WarGames"
WOPR (a/k/a Joshua) War Operations Plan Response. Would you like to play a nice game of chess?

From the TV Show "Red Dwarf:
Holly/Queeg. The computer with an IQ of 6000 that has become senile. Oh, let's not forget Talkie Toaster, the annoying computerized appliance with a fixation on bread.

From "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Some legendary computers here: Marvin the Paranoid Android, Deep Thought, and of course the greatest computer of all, The Earth.

[Ray Girvan]

Nice project. Here's another E for you: Epiktistes, the creative cigar-smoking computer that appears in several RA Lafferty short stories, and is the subject of his 1971 novel "Arrive at Easterwine: The Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine as conveyed to R.A. Lafferty".

And a G: the Great Napoleon, the mechanical analytical engine that's the main computer of the French government in Gibson & Sterling's steampunk novel "The Difference Engine".

[Ray Girvan]

Ah: if we're talking about Rudy Rucker's "Software", there's Mr Frostee (an evil computer so-called because he travels around in an icecream truck for the refrigeration necessary to cool his chips).

[Charles]

Oh, I forgot about that one, Ray. I once named one of my hard drives Mister Frostee. I checked, it's spelled out and not abbreviated Mr., which just seems to make it more ludicrous and malevolent.

Now I've been thinking, was DSKY really the computer on the moon? Could there have been a computer in an earlier lander like Surveyor? I found this very complex and interesting paper that seems to indicate the Surveyor guidance system was a simple electromechanical feedback mechanism, not a programmable computer.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19660082318_1966082318.pdf