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[sheffield hatter]

For trivia, Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer was the acronym chosen by Arthur C. Clarke for the murderous computer HAL 9000 in the film 2001.

The sadly misunderstood computer, I think you meant to say.

[Bucking Fastard]

For trivia, Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer was the acronym chosen by Arthur C. Clarke for the murderous computer HAL 9000 in the film 2001.

And shift letters of the anacronym forward one in the alphabet to get IBM

[Tris39]

And shift letters of the anacronym forward one in the alphabet to get IBM

Yes. I had heard this, that Clarke wasn't a fan of IBM, so used a one-letter shift. But in a radio interview with him around 15 years ago he rather tetchily quashed this notion, giving the reason above. IBM gave a lot of technical help in making the film, you can even see their logo on some of the computers.