peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (10/06/83)
As I sit here typing and half-watching The Whiz Kids, CBS's new mystery
series that revolves around a group of 4 kids solving crimes by searching
databases, I think I like it (though it is by no means gripping enough to
stop typing). The sole female member of the group, who has just been
initiated into the "club" by having the group's computer commit her
digitized face to memory, has been the most refreshing. While "the guys"
were searching for something in a city database (they have access to
EVERYTHING), without luck, she suggests they ask the heads of the "big bad"
company that they are trying to find out about ("y'know, real face-to-face
contact?"). Later, when told one of the guys built the computer ("RALF")
that dominates the "clubhouse", she says "oh, you're a real computer nerd"
to which she receives the reply "No, NO! I'm not a nerd, I'm a *HACKER*".
Other random moments: RALF has one of the simple robot arms. It is
programmed to pick up sandwiches from a plate, wave it to catch the
hacker's attention, and then hold it steady so that it can be bitten
while the hacker types away.
RALF wants to contact the hacker (I think his name is Ritchie). So it
dials up the school's grade-keeping computer (a group of Apple III's) and
flashes "Get Ritchie" on the screen, overlaying what the administrators
expect. They rush him out of class, demanding to know what's going on
and that he fix it, promising never to do it again. Of course, before
he goes back to class, he's asked to look at the class scheduling program,
much to the consternation of the staff programmer.
The kids' contact to the adult world is a local newspaper reporter, who
works in an office populated by Xerox Stars. There have been a lot of
closeups of Star screens.
I'm giving it a tentatively good rating, but they will have to have
good stories to keep it interesting. My impression, from the first
story, is that they might pull it off, but not by too much.
p. rowley, U. Torontoggr@pyuxbb.UUCP (10/10/83)
Come on, you can't be serious about a program where the elevators have sprinkler systems. Reality obviously has a low priority to the script-writers. === Guy Riddle == AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway ===
mcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (10/12/83)
#R:utcsrgv:-242700:uiucdcs:19200015:000:408 uiucdcs!mcewan Oct 11 13:58:00 1983 My favorite scene in Whiz Kids is when the hacker-kid is trying to log on to the bad guys' computer (the bad guys were nice enough to lock him in a room with a terminal connected to the computer). Without logging on, he writes a program to try every possible password (that is, every possible letter combination, starting from "AAAAAA") until it finds the correct password and logs him on! Scott McEwan
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (10/12/83)
yes, writing a program to find the password was very interesting. Was the terminal programmable, did the operating system let him do certain things without being logged on, or how did he do this? Or maybe its 'artistic license'. Also, must be some CPU that 'RALF' has, to do real-time pattern recognition (kid walks by camera, RALF calls him by name). My favorite part was when the robot arm waves food in front of his face. This isn't something that Richie was likely to have programmed in, I got the impression that RALF had seen a human do this, and was imitating. Dave Seifert ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert -- Dave Seifert ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert