Answers: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150204)

[Doug Ingraham]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Doug Ingraham <dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com>
wrote:

> This time lets refer to some classic fictional computers used in movies.
> Everyone probably knows about the HAL 9000 used in the movie 2001 a Space
> Odyssey.
>
> What was the name of HAL's sister computer in the movie 2010 Odyssey two?
>

SAL 9000


> That was a warm up question.  This one should be more difficult.
>
> What was the designation of the computer in the movie WarGames and what
> does it mean?
>

WOPR which stands for War Operation Plan Response.

And finally,
>
> As silly as it was the movie Hackers referred to the mainframe computer in
> the movie as a Gibson.
>
> Where did the term Gibson come from?
>

It is believed to be a reference to the author William Gibson who coined
the term Cyberpunk in his short story Burning Chrome (1982 Omni) and then
his novel Neuromancer (1984).

Hope you all enjoyed this one!


-- 
Doug Ingraham
PDP-8 SN 1175