Art by Jack Gaughan for “The Glitch” by Blish & Stanton in “Galaxy” magazine, June, 1974. Original sketch at left, published work at right.
The entire world was put in the care of a single machine called ULTIMAC, a self-monitoring, self-correcting computer. It was tied to every other computer in the world, which it monitored and repaired, too. ULTIMAC managed the economy of the world, constructed curricula, diagnosed illnesses, predicted earthquakes, controlled all spaceflights. It was housed in a massive, miles-wide building over Niagara Falls which provided the necessary cooling.
Ivor Harrigan was a computer servicing engineer whose job was rendered obsolete. ULTIMAC worked perfectly for a decade. It put all computer men out of business, but then the glitch hit. The machine suddenly developed a potty mouth, printing out answers to school children that would have embarrassed even advanced medical students. Ivor Harrigan was drafted to fix the problem.
The massive building in which ULTIMAC was housed wasn’t designed for humans. It was a maze of narrow corridors. As Ivor Harrigan entered the building, he encountered servicing devices called “servos,” much like robots that “had about ten times as many appendages as he did.” The corridors were designed for their passage and were electrified, making Ivor’s hair stand on end. The servos rapid passage through the corridors was noisy and rather frightening, until Ivor found a way to hitch rides on the servos. This was safer and faster than his backbreaking swan gait, even though a servo never turned up that went directly to the lair of the glitch. He had to waddle the last half mile.
Once Ivor had reached the faceplate of the children’s answering service and had removed two bolts, all hell broke loose. “He was grabbed from behind by all his available appendages at once, nose and ears included, and rushed out of the chamber.” ULTIMAC had spotted a gross malfunction – it was Ivor Harrigan and his bag of tools.
The computer treated Ivor, ungently, as a misplaced component. He was probed, rotated, measured, tested, repainted and dried, and carried off to somewhere else . . .
[Note: The June ’74 issue slots seamlessly into the era’s anxieties about centralized systems, automation, and the fallibility of intelligence — artificial or otherwise. Blish and Stanton’s ULTIMAC anticipates Big Tech long before its acronymic rise, and Gaughan renders it with both dread and whimsy.]
Art by Jack Gaughan for “The Glitch” by Blish & Stanton in “Galaxy” magazine, June, 1974. Original sketch at left, published work at right.
The entire world was put in the care of a single machine called ULTIMAC, a self-monitoring, self-correcting computer. It was tied to every other computer in the world, which it monitored and repaired, too. ULTIMAC managed the economy of the world, constructed curricula, diagnosed illnesses, predicted earthquakes, controlled all spaceflights. It was housed in a massive, miles-wide building over Niagara Falls which provided the necessary cooling.
Ivor Harrigan was a computer servicing engineer whose job was rendered obsolete. ULTIMAC worked perfectly for a decade. It put all computer men out of business, but then the glitch hit. The machine suddenly developed a potty mouth, printing out answers to school children that would have embarrassed even advanced medical students. Ivor Harrigan was drafted to fix the problem.
The massive building in which ULTIMAC was housed wasn’t designed for humans. It was a maze of narrow corridors. As Ivor Harrigan entered the building, he encountered servicing devices called “servos,” much like robots that “had about ten times as many appendages as he did.” The corridors were designed for their passage and were electrified, making Ivor’s hair stand on end. The servos rapid passage through the corridors was noisy and rather frightening, until Ivor found a way to hitch rides on the servos. This was safer and faster than his backbreaking swan gait, even though a servo never turned up that went directly to the lair of the glitch. He had to waddle the last half mile.
Once Ivor had reached the faceplate of the children’s answering service and had removed two bolts, all hell broke loose. “He was grabbed from behind by all his available appendages at once, nose and ears included, and rushed out of the chamber.” ULTIMAC had spotted a gross malfunction – it was Ivor Harrigan and his bag of tools.
The computer treated Ivor, ungently, as a misplaced component. He was probed, rotated, measured, tested, repainted and dried, and carried off to somewhere else . . .
[Note: The June ’74 issue slots seamlessly into the era’s anxieties about centralized systems, automation, and the fallibility of intelligence — artificial or otherwise. Blish and Stanton’s ULTIMAC anticipates Big Tech long before its acronymic rise, and Gaughan renders it with both dread and whimsy.]