From: cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows)
Subject: Holly's Senility
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 05:36:07 GMT


Indeed, Holly has gone slightly senile, or at least he's forgotten a lot 
of things.

I just bought and am halfway through _Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers_,
and in the beginning (page 43), Holly is a superbrain.  I quote the 
book:

  "What's that thing?" asked Lister, pointing up to the disembodied head
on the monitor screen.
  "Holly, the ship's computer.  He's got an IQ of six thousand.  Want
to ask him a question?"
  "Like what?"
  "Like anything at all."  Rogerson called up to the ceiling; "Hey,
Holly--this is Lister..."
  The huge eyes rolled down in their direction.  "I know.  Lister, Da-
vid.  Date of birth, 14th October, 2155.  Qualifications: GCSE, Techni-
cal Drawing, failed.  Rank: Technician, Third Class.  Ambitions: to visit 
strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations: to bold-
ly go where no person has gone before.  All right, Dave?"  A huge eye-
lid rolled over the digital eye and winked at Lister.
  "Ask him something," Rogerson urged.
  "Who holds the all-time record for three-dimensional yardage in a sin-
gle Zero-Gee football season?"
  "Jim Bexley Speed, London Jets Roof Attack, season '74-'75.  Four thou-
sand, six hundred and thirty-six square yards in the regular season."
  "And what colour tie was he wearing when he was interviewed by Mark
Matheson after Megabowl 102?"
  "Aquamarine, with a diagonal lemon stripe." 
  "Brutal."  Lister grinned.
  Chomsky chipped in: "Who was the Chinese Emporer of the Ming dynasty
in 1620?"
  "T'ai-ch'ang," Holly replied immediately; "also known as Chu Ch'ang-
lo Kuang Tsung.  Born 1582."
  They all began shouting questions: "Who was the...?"  "How many...?"
"When did...?" and
"When did...?" and, one by one, Holly got them right.
  Finally Petersen asked a question.  "Why is the room going round and
round?"
  "Because you're drunk," said Holly.
  "That's _riiiiight_!"  Petersen clapped, delighted.

--Pages 43-44, _Infinity_


Yet, later, Holly has lost some of that genius.  Another quote:

  For some time now, well, the last two hundred thousand years to be
exact, Holly had grown increasingly concerned about himself.  For a com-
puter with an IQ of six thousand, it seems to him he was behaving in a
more and more erratic way.
  In fact, he'd long suspected he'd gone a bit peculiar.  Just as a
bachelor who spends too much time on his own gradually develops quirks
and eccentricities, so a computer who spends three million years alone
in Deep Space can get, well, set in his ways.  Become quirky.  Go a 
little bit...odd.
  Holly decided not to burden Lister with this anxiety, and hoped his 
oddness would eventually sort itself out now he had a bit of company.
  Another slight concern which he tried to put to the back of his RAM
was that, for a computer with an IQ of six thousand, there was a rather
alarming amount of knowledge he seemed to have forgotten.  It wasn't,
on the whole, important things, but was nonetheless fairly disturbing.
  He knew, for instance, that Isaac Newton was a famous physicist, but
he couldn't remember why.
  He couldn't remember the capital of Luxembourg.
  He _could_ recall pi to thirty thousand digits, but he couldn't say
for absolute certain whether port was on the left side, and starboard on
the right, or whether it was the other way round.
  Who knocked Swansea City out of the FA Cup in 1967?  He _used_ to know.
It was a mystery now.
  Obviously none of this missing information was absolutely vital for the
smooth running of a mining ship three million years out into Deep Space.
But technically he was supposed to know more-or-less everything and, 
frankly, there were some worrying gaps.  He could remember, for instance,
that in the second impression, 1959 publication of _Lolita_ by Vladi-
mir Nabakov, printed in Great Britain by the Shenval Press (London, Hert-
ford and Harrow), page 60 was far and away the dirtiest page.  But was 
Nabakov German or Russian?  It totally eluded him.
  Maybe it wasn't important.  Of course it wasn't important.
  Still, it was for Holly a source of perturbation.
  _It's a source of perturbation_, he thought.  Then he wondered whether
there was such a word as "perturbation", or whether he'd just made it up.
He didn't know that either.  Oh, it was hopeless.
--pages 100-101, _Infinity_

This is mentioned later, in other places, but that's enough to show
how it happened...

---Chris Meadows

Newsgroups: alt.tv.red-dwarf