HAL 9000 on the Auction Block

pompous windbag writes "The Cinerama 160 degree lens used to both play and film the viewpoint of the famous paranoid processor. He's now up for sale on eBay, for the starting bid of just $150,000(USD). This looks like the real deal, complete with letters of authenticity and some extra goodies like "...an original '2001' movie program, a copy of the original script, two issues of American Cinematographer Magazines on the production of '2001' published in 1968, and the movie '2010' published in 1985. Also included is videotape showing how HAL 9000 originated and was used by Stanley Kubrick.' "

Comments

For just the lens?

[eln]

From the auction text, it looks like the only actual part of the "computer" is the lens that was used as the "eye" of HAL. Seems like a lot of money for just that one piece, and the rest of the crap they throw in just seems like they're trying to clear out someone's closet.

Re:Not bad.

[Frymaster]

Hrm... $150K isn't a bad deal if it can still sing "Daisy"..

you can probably get an ibm 7094 for cheaper... that, of course, was the first computer to "sing" daisy as programmed by john kelly and carol lockbaum in 1961.

you can get the audio file of the original here.

A worthwhile read

[cascino]

A worthwhile read on the legacy of the lens used in the film can be found here.


It seems a man named Kirk Wooster from Georgia claims to have the lens. Note the auction is listed as taking place in Woodstock, GA.

Re:Not bad. Daisy mp3

[Sebastopol]

here's the MP3

http://audio.textfiles.com/sounds/daisy.mp3

It is so impressive that two people did this in 1961! I bet there aren't 10 people alive today that could reproduce this coding feat with the same hardware. Take away gdb and msvc and most programmers crumble...