Hal and translation

[Simon]

Hey!
I'm re-reading 2001: A Space Odyssey (I saw the movie looonnnnnng ago, but I don't remember anything).

I just noticed that, in the french version, the computer is named Carl 9000. It sounds awful, doesn't it ?
It stands for "Cerveau Analytique de Recherche et de Liaison" (CARL), which means something like "Analytic Brain for Research and Connection" (ABRC 9000 ? lol).
I think they should have left Hal 9000 ! What does HAL mean in the original version ???

In the same way, I was lost because Discovery-1 is called Explorateur-1, and I wonder why they translated this in french, while they left some english words like "Mr and Mrs Poole", "birthday" or "technish" (for the technical language.. the -ish word has nothing to do with french, even if I understand where it comes from).
Weird, isn't it ?

In fact, I wonder why I'm so surprised, as the title itself has been changed from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "2001: L'odyss?e de l'espace" (= 2001 : The odyssey of space).
You're lucky if you're english born !!!

[reneuend]

Hey Simon,

H-A-L is one character in the alphabet from I-B-M

[Sedani Studio]

My understanding was that it stood for Heuristic ALgorithm.

[Vairon]

I love this movie. I searched some information and... surprise! I didn't know that there are more films related to the novel!

For your info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000

Best regards, Vairon.

[Simon]

Thanks everyone
So it's Heuristic Algorithm... OK, I got it now !
From Vairon's link on wikipedia, we can even say that the full name is "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer"

Hey reneuend, what is this IBM alphabet with the HAL character ? Could you explain ?

Vairon, I suggest you don't see the other movies, if there really are more than 2. I know they made 2010, with the actor Roy Scheider (the guy who played in the Seaquest series, you know ?), and the 2010 movie wasn't that bad (I saw it before 2001 lol). But I'm not sure if they made 2061 ? Did they ?
On the contrary, I recommand you read the books, they're really good. There are 4 of them, concluded by 3001 : the final odyssey !
I don't really remember the story, that's why I've started them from the beginning.

Reading is very good for everyone :^p

[reneuend]

I'm sure you have heard of IBM (International Business Machines). They are well-known for mainly their mainframe computers. The letters in "HAL" is 1 character over from "IBM".

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


...hope that helps.

[Simon]

lol yeah I know IBM
OK got it !
And you think it was made on purpose ? That's interesting. So they chose the letters before IBM, and then they decided that it would mean Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.
If I do the same with CARL, it gives DBSM... Looks like they didn't know your tip when they chose the french translation

[mrmyst]

The German say "HAL". But he does not sing "Daisy Bell" but "H?nschen Klein, ging allein", a Children-Song.

[Simon]

lol that's still better than having CARL instead of HAL