Reporter’s diary

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Byting back A CHRISTCHURCH reader has a computer which has blown its top — at another computer. The recalcitrant computer belonging to an Auckland firm had continually misaddressed all mail to Mr Kinniburgh as “Mr A. K. Burgh,” in spite of plaintive pleas from him to get it right. Here is part of his computer’s tirade to the Auckland “wrongdoer”: “Shame on you!!! How could you let your masters down!! Was it lack of ram? Or bent floppies? Please don’t blame your operators (even though you and I both know they are always blaming us, saying we are ‘down’ all the time. Down where, I ask you? Miami?) In the meantime my owner is feeling a bit sorry for those blockheads you work for and has enclosed a copy of his letter sent 19/6/86. Now, don’t try and tell me you didn’t receive it, there is positive data in my memory banks that my owner calls proof. Alternatively, you could carry on spitting out accounts addressed to Mr A. K. Non-existent Burgh. I leave the matter entirely up to your software. Happy disk crunching, Yours terminally, Atari 800 XL.” Pressing tbeir luck POST-GRADUATE

students in the history department of the University of Canterbury have been through it before. So when the dreaded time came on Monday for the start of the university examinations they made a message out of copies of “The Press,” for undergraduates suffering the stresses and strains of the end of the year. Pocket-sizing robot THERE’S NO hope for we ordinary mortals. Now someone has created a robot that can play snooker. Professor Richard Gregory, the head of brain research at Bristol University, told of the breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence when speaking to 200 members at the Mensa fortieth anniversary dinner in Oxford. Professor Gregory claimed that the robot later learned how to correct its mistakes. Definitely unfair. Industrial swapping IN ACCRA, they need someone with know-how about extracting pineapple juice; in Bangalore they need someone who knows about making surgical gloves; in Chittagong, Lagos, Colombo, Dodoma, Oshogbo, they need all kinds of expertise and technology to make any-

thing from optical fibre laryngoscopes to nappies. This is all revealed in a newsletter published by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (U.N.1.D.0.). Directed at manufacturers and industrialists in both the developing and developed world, the newsletter lists resources sought and resources available — a sort of buy, sell or exchange in skills. Experts wanting to share knowledge and financial risk can write to the monthly newsletter, C/o U.N.1.D.0., Box 300, A--1400, Vienna, Austria, to get their names on a free mailing list. Bad, bad car THE MAYOR of Cheltenham, England, has finally given up the battle with his official vehicle, a 14-year-old Daimler. The car was costing more than $4250 to maintain, and spent more time off the road than on. The final straw came when council dignitaries used the car to drive to Buckingham Palace for a garden party. The Daimler stalled at nearly every set of lights in central London and the passengers had to get out and push. Mr Don Perry, the Mayor, later said: “By the time we had arrived I was a nervous and physical wreck.” The Daimler’s registration number? BAD 99.

—Jenny Feltiiam