Kubrick and Clarke (Long) Message #7 Posted by Michael F. Coyle on 11 June 2003, 11:04 p.m., in response to message #4 by Valentin Albillo
Some information about Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke and their HP Calculators you might find of interest:
The HP Digest, Volume 2 (1977) has an article by Bernard Oliver. At the end, he says,
Quote: Stanley Kubrick, director of 2001, A Space Odyssey, was an early purchaser of an HP-35. He wrote me a letter of praise and ended by saying that the HP-35 would do for now, but what he really wanted was a pocket machine that told him what to do next. Even at the present rate of progress, I doubt if Kubrick can ever have that machine.
(This article is on Disk 4 of the MoHPC set. It is fascinating and well worth reading.)
Arthur C. Clark tells a interesting story about how he got his first HP Calculator. In 1968 he received a postcard from a magazine; they were preparing an article for their Christmas issue. They sent cards to many celebrities asking them what they wanted for Christmas; the best ones would be compiled and published as an article. Clarke threw the card out, then retreived it and wrote "Hewlett-Packard Calculator." The 9100A had just come out and he was impressed with its capabilities. He eventually did get the 9100 -- HP engineers saw the article and took up a collection to buy it for him. (2001 had just come out, and I guess the calculator was sort of a thank-you.)
This story is told in a book called Ascent to Orbit, a collection of Clarke's non-fiction writings published in 1984. It introduces an article called "Hal Jr. vs. the Integers," in which he uses his 9100 to do some mathematical exploration, the details of which I've forgotten.
Just thought you'd like to know.
- Michael
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