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List of fictional computers

This page is intended to be a list of computers in fiction and science fiction.

Computers have often been used as fictional objects in literature, movies and in other forms of media. Fictional computers tend to be considerably more sophisticated than anything yet devised in the real world.



Contents

Helpful / benevolent fictional computers

Harmful / malevolent fictional computers

Ambivalent / neutral fictional computers

  • The unnamed computer from Fredric Brown's short story "Answer", which answers the question "Is there a God?" with "Yes, now there is a God."
  • Central Conciousness, massive governing body from the computer game Total Annihilation.
  • The Computer from West End Games Paranoia role playing game.
  • Earth, the greatest computer of all time in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, bought and run by mice to find the Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
  • EPICAC in Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, which coordinates the United States economy.
  • EVA, the Electronic Video Agent AI, console interface, and more benign equivalent of the Brotherhood of Nod CABAL in Command & Conquer (see above).
  • Googleplex Star Thinker in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard.
  • Eddie, the shipboard computer with artificial personality in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • The Engine, a mechanical computer featured in Gulliver's Travels. This is considered to be the first fictional computer.
  • Father , the station computer in the movie Alien: Resurrection.
  • Frost, the protagonist computer in Roger Zelazny's story "For a Breath I Tarry"; also SolCom, DivCom, and Beta.
  • Gambit, game playing computer from Blake's 7 ('Games')
  • The General, from The Prisoner
  • Ghostwheel, from Roger Zelazny's second series of Amber novels. A computer with esoteric environmental requirements, designed to apply data-processing techniques to alternate realities called "Shadows".
  • HAL 9000, in 2001: A Space Odyssey (and sequels) in which the computer (HAL) starts murdering the crew when it discovers that they plan to disconnect its higher brain functions because of what they believe to be a problem. HAL's actions are later revealed to be the result of a logic conflict.
  • Loki 7281, from Roger Zelazny's short story by the same name, in which his home computer wants to take over the world.
  • The Magi, a trinity of computers individually named Melchior, Balthasar and Casper, from Neon Genesis Evangelion
  • Magic Voice, the Satellite of Love's onboard computer on Mystery Science Theater 3000
  • Mother , the ship-board computer in the SF horror movie Alien
  • SCMODS (State, County, Municipal Offender Data System), police patrol car computer in the movie The Blues Brothers
  • Starship 31, the sapient spaceborne battleship, from the episode Starship 88 in The Outer Limits
  • The Ultima Machine, a WWII code-breaking "computing machine" used to translate Viking inscriptions, from Doctor Who ('The Curse of Fenric')
  • WESCAC (West Campus Analog Computer) from John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy
  • WOPR (War Operations Plan and Response) from the movie WarGames
  • XERXES The ship computer system which is under the control of the annelids in the computer game System Shock 2.

Uncategorized

Computers as Robots

See the List of fictional robots and androids for all fictional computers which are described as existing in a mobile or humanlike form.

Related articles

External links

  • http://newark.rutgers.edu/~hbf/compulit.htm
  • http://www.computer.org/intelligent/homepage/x2his.htm
  • http://technicity.net/articles/writing_the_future.htm
  • http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/mnbkfc.htm – A large set of reviews of fiction that bears on computers in some aspect
  • List of computer names in science fiction – Also includes androids, robots and sundry aliens
  • Robot Hall of Fame at CMU – With fictional inductees HAL-9000 and R2-D2
Last updated: 05-07-2005 15:29:31
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04