@RUTGERS.ARPA:augeri%regina.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (01/22/85)
From: augeri%regina.DEC@decwrl.ARPA >From: redford%doctor.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (John Redford) >Subject: movie request > >I heard from a friend about a movie or TV version of "The >Adolescence of P1". Does anyone know anything about it? The book >was about a system cracking program which gets loose in the net and >eventually attains consciousness. It was unusually accurate for >this kind of thing, unlike, say, "Wargames". There was a movie on the Boston PBS station (WGBH, channel 2) last week titled "Hide and Seek" that was based on the book "The Adolescence of P1". The movie was done by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (don't remember the year), had a cast of unknowns (probably Canadian), and was only about 55 minutes long. The ending credits of the movie gave credit to the book for the story. In the movie the program was created by a high school hacker playing a game that looks like "Life". The kid explains to a friend that the patterns being generated by the game looked like computer programs. So, he tried to run one of these patterns that he had saved, and bingo, he had created this incredibly intelligent program. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and the movie, but from my memories of the book, the creation of the program was more believable than the way it was depicted in the movie, even though I can't remember the details of the book. In the movie, the program gets into a computer that is controlling a nuclear power plant and creates a situation where the reactor is about to go critical. In the book I remember the program getting into some super-powerful defense computer, but my memory fades after that. In both stories the attempt to destroy the program fails, so the program is still around somewhere... Mike Augeri UUCP: {your_path_to_decwrl}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-regina!augeri ARPA: augeri%regina.dec@decwrl.arpa ENET: regina::augeri
herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS]) (01/23/85)
the person who stated that this show was a takeoff on Wargames is mistaken.
the show was filmed and edited before Wargames came out. it's release
was delayed for reasons i do not know.
Herb Chong...
I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....
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