Aug 31
Don Comments: Thank you for calling Tech Support. If your computer is drooling, press 1. If you are the computer and you’re being harassed by a fat guy with curly hair, press 2.
Published 1967
Don Comments: Thank you for calling Tech Support. If your computer is drooling, press 1. If you are the computer and you’re being harassed by a fat guy with curly hair, press 2.
Published 1967
August 31st, 2012 at 10:09 am
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. for the B.E.A.S.T.!
It’s not nice to call Charles Eric Maine a computer-created monster.
Spooling the tape out all over the floor is one method of control, but have you tried turning off and back on again?
August 31st, 2012 at 10:14 am
I ask you to kill Superman, and you’re telling me you couldn’t even do that one, simple thing.
August 31st, 2012 at 10:41 am
Not even going to try to compete with the Windows joke. Cackled out loud.
August 31st, 2012 at 12:17 pm
I’ve gotta say, they’ve really taken Windows 8 in a new direction.
Also impressed that it supports UNIVAC.
August 31st, 2012 at 5:16 pm
I actually rather like this one. It’s dated, but I like it as a cover design. On the other hand, I wouldn’t proudly waive that book around in public either.
August 31st, 2012 at 5:20 pm
The future of CAD/CAM used to be a lot more interesting.
August 31st, 2012 at 5:25 pm
My eye is drawn, as if hypnotised, to the pink ‘A’ in the middle. It’s very … pink.
August 31st, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I was going to make a joke involving demon possessed Crayola Crayons, but upon reading the caption, I forgot what I was going to say.
August 31st, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Despite appearances, it’s not actually the corporate history of Microsoft…
August 31st, 2012 at 7:32 pm
After seeing this cover I just had an entire non-existent episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E flash before my eyes.
September 1st, 2012 at 3:27 am
What would we do without reel to reel magnetic tapes, the larger they are the more powerful the computer.
September 1st, 2012 at 4:55 am
That computer looks great, but it probably has less memory than a slinky.
1967? If you can remember painting this cover, you didn’t paint it.
September 1st, 2012 at 6:00 am
I don’t even know what the hell this is supposed to be. A person trapped in the computer? a person emerging from the computer that bore it?
Google is no help either.
September 1st, 2012 at 9:23 am
@Jerk of all Trades. No, there’s not much information available. B.E.A.S.T stands for Biological Evolutionary Animal Simulation Test, which, you notice, makes no sense whatever. There seems to be exactly one review on the net, and it’s rather… odd:
“What Mark Harland finds at the secret biological research laboratory is much more basic and frightening than a minor breach of security. And what happens when B.E.A.S.T. becomes a beast, and breaks loose from its magnetic tape, is something which Harland has to handle on a catch-as-catch-can basis, until the whole thing explodes into violence and perversion-with Harland out on a very loose and long limb.”
September 1st, 2012 at 5:03 pm
@JOAT and Rachel: Unstable boffin creates artificial intelligence program which ultimately takes him over (maybe just in his own mind, maybe for real. Wooo.) Lots of skeevy bits, mostly involving the oversexed Swedish research assistant (1960s British cultural cliches abound.)
The overall effect is best described as Michael Crichton in a dirty mac.
September 3rd, 2012 at 6:42 am
“48 Kilobytes Of Pure Evil!”
“Its magnetic tape will snare your soul!”
“More terrifying than a possessed slide rule!”
September 4th, 2012 at 12:46 am
I’ve felt like this, but only when I tried to use Vista.
September 4th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Were people really this scared of computers in 1967? (Are there any book covers with horror-ish images of hippies and/or cops?)
:-S
September 4th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Were people really this scared of computers? Let’s see: COLOSSUS (1966), HAL9000 (1968), AM (“I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream”, 1967), M5 (Star Trek’s “The Ultimate Computer”, 1967)…
So I would say yes, they were!
Of course, in those days it was possible to get a computer to self-destruct by either (a) telling it to compute Pi to the last decimal place or (b) asking it the question “Why?” According to the movies and TV shows I was brought up on, at any rate. At some point they must have found a fix for these terrible bugs. Even with Windows 7 I can’t get my laptop to blow up.
There’s a list of fictional computers, both bonkers ones and sensible ones, on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_computers
September 4th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
G.O.O.G.L.E.
No one could control the computer-created browser.
September 4th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I wonder what the computer used to generate teeth?
September 7th, 2012 at 8:14 am
1010011010
The Number of the B.E.A.S.T.
March 7th, 2014 at 2:36 pm
“I am now telling the computer exactly what he can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate.”
January 23rd, 2015 at 10:46 pm
P.A.S.S.
December 17th, 2015 at 6:50 pm
The mouth clearly belongs to a man, but the EYE on the other hand looks like it’s from a woman. On top of everything else, we have Frankenstein-style weird shit going on as well.
March 14th, 2016 at 11:55 am
B.A.R.M.Y.