COMPUTERS FROM SCIENCE FICTION
                            COMPUTERS FROM SCIENCE FICTION








                                     DAVID GREGG
                                     DAVID GREGG










                    A computer is technically a machine for making

          computations.  In this sense one's fingers are a very crude

          computer.  An abacus is a much more sophistocated computer.

          Today, however, the word computer refers to an electronic device

          of great complexity which manipulates data according to its

          programming.[1]


                    There is nothing which more symbolizes the future than

          do computers.  Ever since the invention of the digital computer

          by Howard Aiken in 1944, those humming banks of blinking lights

          have embodied all man's brightest hopes and darkest fears for the

          future of his race and his world.[2] The explosive growth of

          computer technology following the advents of the transistor and

          the integrated circuit has fueled our concerns over the course of

          society and the effects which computers will have on it.  It is

          not surprising therefore, that the computer has become a

          centerpiece of science fiction, that school of literature which

          speculates about the future and about current trends projected


          ----------

          1. Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin, Science Fiction: History,
                                                _________________________
          Science, Vision, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p.
          _______________
          86

          2. Robin Kerrod, Concise Color Encyclopedia of Science, (New
                           _____________________________________
          York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1975), p.  126



                                        - 2 -










          into the future.  A great multitude of science fiction short

          stories and novels address the role of computers in future

          societies.  All the biggest names in the genre, Asimov, Heinlein,

          Vonnegutt, Pohl have made their contributions to the

          speculation.  In the same way that great social concern over

          computers has translated itself into the ideas of science

          fiction, so too do the hopes and fears of science fiction reflect

          modern popular feelings toward computers.  By careful examination

          of these literary visions of computers, conclusions can be made

          about peoples' visions for the future of computers.





          0.2 The Science Fiction Computers
          _________________________________



          0.2.1 Computers Replacing Humans


                    Let us briefly examine a sampling of science fiction

          concerns of the computers of the future.  The part of society

          seen by writers as most readily accessible to computerization is

          the substitution of computers for humans in everyday tasks.

          Although there are innumerable stories who's backgrounds involve

          computerized assembly lines and factories (Karel Capek's R.U.R.)
                                                                   ______

          or computerized vehicles (taxis in John Brunner's To Stand On
                                                            ___________

          Zanzibar or spaceships (Larry Niven's Ringworld, the kind of
          ________                              _________

          computer replacements of human actions which seem to appear most

          alarming are replacements of functions previously considered to

          be characteristic of humans and distiniguishing of individuals.



                                        - 3 -










          In his short story "The Nine Billion Names of God," Arthur C.

          Clarke hypothesises a computer which is programmed to do the

          religious duties of the monk