Douglas Rain is alive and well
Okay, I admit it, I enjoy using google **way** to much.
I'm gonna assume that most folks reading this won't know who Douglas Rain is offhand, and, well, I'd be kinda concerned if you did... I mean, unless you came from Winnipeg, Manitoba or were a huge movie buff. I didn't until today, and, well, I, argh, googled it.
Dougless Rain was the voice of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010.Which, of course, brings me to my first /Sun topic... my first experience, with, well. HAL. HAL, in this case, stands for hardware abstraction layer. (I'm now looping through Sprach Zarathustra). Here's a bit from the man page of hal(1M):
HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) provides a view of the various hardware attached to a system updated dynamically as hardware configuration changes, via hotplug or other mechanisms. HAL represents a piece of hardware as a device object.
By running two commands, I'm now accessing my iPod and my Nikon D50 on my F4005 with SNV_52. Cool.
[robs@f4005 media]$ rmmount -l /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:1 rmdisk1,NIKON D50 /dev/dsk/c4t0d0p0:1 rmdisk,rmdisk0,ROBERT'S IP,/media/ROBERT'S IP [robs@f4005 media]$ rmmount rmdisk1 rmdisk1 /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:1 mounted at /media/NIKON D50 [robs@f4005 media]$ ls NIKON D50/ ROBERT'S IP/
Certainly not a "Hello World" moment, or anything close to views of the black monolith given us by Kubrick in the dawn of man sequence, but a nice feeling nonetheless.
Rob: Interesting comments on Douglas Rain. He was also the narrator of the 1975 Academy Award Winng Documentary: "The Man Who Skied Down Everest " I have to correct you, though, on the abbreviation definition of HAL. In fact, Kubrick came up with the abbreviation simply. HAL is one letter off from the original computer giant, none other than Big Blue...IBM. And now you know the rest of the story.
Posted by Todd on February 04, 2008 at 10:21 AM HKT #
Thanks! I'll be sure to check the movie out. (I was talking about the definition of HAL as it applied to this implementation... thanks for pointing out how Kubrick came-up with his HAL.)
Posted by robs on February 13, 2008 at 01:48 PM HKT #
Actually, the whole IBM coincidence is just that - a coincidence. I had heard about the IBM correlation before, and when 2010 came out, I remember "someone" disputing that it was completely unintentionaly and a very eerie coincidence.
HAL stands for "Heuristic Algorithmic Computer" -- and according to imdb.com, "Arthur C. Clarke (co-screenwriter) claimed this was unintentional, and if he had noticed it before it was too late, he would have changed it."
Posted by Tim on March 02, 2008 at 01:55 PM HKT #
Yours is the second current blog about Douglas Rain I have come across today. I was thinking about him and wondering if he was still with us. I worked with him at Stratford in the late 80s and early nineties. He is a deeply private, shy, grumpy, brilliant, kind, acerbic man who I learned a great deal from. Acting with him was surreal. His presence on stage was so powerful, all you had to do was listen and he would deftly lead the way. He wasn't an easy man to get to know, but I caught glimpses of all the above adjectives at one time or other. I knew true terror when I happened to elbow him in the throat accidently during a blackout after one of our scenes. I was terrified (until I could see him after the show), that I would go down in history as the guy who had permanently destroyed or impaired the voice of Hal... Thankfully all was well.
Cheers
Posted by Andrew Dolha on September 07, 2008 at 04:05 AM HKT #
What a wonderful story! Thanks so much for sharing it.
I could definitely sense the terror even now. :)
Regards,
--Robs
Posted by Robs on September 15, 2008 at 10:45 PM HKT #
I always thought Douglas Rain should have been the first actor to be nominated for a voice-only role as HAL. As the most "human" science fiction film villain, it's indeed his most remarkable performance. I'm glad there are sites dedicated to him including this one.
Posted by Mike Basil on February 22, 2009 at 07:55 AM HKT #
I just wish someone would open the pod door.
Posted by Deena Rose on April 10, 2009 at 09:04 AM HKT #
here he is in 1995: http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Rain%2C%20Douglas
presumably this is more recent: http://www.northernstars.ca/actorspqr/rain_douglas.html
Posted by gail on May 15, 2009 at 09:21 AM HKT #
Thanks! I don't think I'd ever seen pictures of him before.
Posted by Robs on May 15, 2009 at 10:38 AM HKT #