FYI
 
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In suitable time-warp fashion, the birth of one of the
world's most memorable fictional astronauts will be celebrated about a year
from now - and on the spot where some 29 years before he was said to have
been created.
 
In March 1997, the University of Illinois will hail the arrival of Hal, the
smart, smooth-talking and ultimately unplugged computer who in the 1968
novel and film "2001: A Space Odyssey" was said to originate in 1997 in
Urbana - home of the U. of I.  But Hal's earth-birth is merely the launch
pad for "Cyberfest
'97," which, according to event planners, is to be a kind of "Woodstock"
for the (computer) "wired," and a real and virtual, festive and reflective
consideration of the role of computers in the past, present and future life
of human beings.
 
Cyberfest '97 events, including film festivals, music concerts, lectures -
even a satellite uplink with Hal's creator, writer Arthur C. Clarke - are
being scheduled for the week of March 10, 1997.  Planners hope to attract a
wide range of people in addition to   U. of I. students, faculty and staff,
including computer and technology enthusiasts and members of the film,
literary and performing arts communities.
 
Celebrities of the computer and the motion picture industries are being
invited to participate in Cyberfest '97, believed to be the first event of
its kind.  Roger Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Chicago
Sun-Times, television show host, and U. of I. alumnus, has agreed to
co-host the event.
 
The festival "anchor event" - a panel discussion featuring celebrities and
scholars of the cyber and celluloid worlds - is set for March 12, 1997, in
the U. of I. Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.  Also scheduled for
that day are a "new music" concert by the U. of I. music faculty and a
technology fair.
 
 
Other events include:
* March 13, 1997, a showing of "2001: A Space Odyssey," which Ebert will
introduce and later discuss.
 
* March 14, 1997, a satellite-uplinked conversation with Clarke in Sri
Lanka and computer and film personalities elsewhere around the globe;
burial of a time capsule.
 
* March 15, 1997, a popular music concert.
News and other information about Cyberfest '97, as well as links to
hundreds of other sites, will be posted, beginning March 15, 1996, on the
Cyberfest '97 homepage at:  http://www.cyberfest.uiuc.edu.
 
During his untimely unplugging, Hal - short for Heuristically programmed
AL-gorithmic computer -  said (in the book):  "I am a HAL nine thousand
computer Production Number 3.  Ibecame operational at the Hal Plant in
Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997."  (In the movie, the date was
incorrectly read as 1992.)
 
Clarke said the reason he chose Urbana as Hal's birthplace was because his
mathematics professor at King's College in London, George McVittie, moved
from London to Urbana-Champaign.  McVittie was a professr and chairman of
the U. of I. astronomy department from 1952 to his retirement in 1972.  It
was during the same time that the U. of I. became a birthplace of the
world's first electronic digital computers.
 
ILLIAC I, the first general purpose high-speed computing machine built and
owned entirely by an educational institution, became operational at the U.
of I. in 1952.  It and its successors formed the basis for the HAL 9000.
More recently, NCSA Mosaic, the first popular Web browser, was created at the U.
of I. National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
 
The university, which conducts cutting-edge research in computer
technology, also is a leader in studies of human and artificial
intelligence.  The U. of I. was home to several students who became
astronauts, including Steven Nagel, Dale Gardner, Joseph Tanner and Bonnie
Dunbar.
 
Cyberfest '97 sponsors are the U. of I. colleges of Communications;
Engineering; Fine and Applied Arts; and Liberal Arts and Sciences.
 
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