Talk:Sirius Cybernetics Corporation

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42, the Meaning of Life This article is part of WikiProject Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this notice, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

If I am not mistaken the last paragraph is copied largely verbaitm from one of the h2g2 books (including text which is outside of the quotation marks), and should probably be marked clearly as a quotation. --24.44.37.202 01:08, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Done! Project2501a 10:43, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Location of the Complaints Department

Is it Tau_Ceti? --(boxed) 02:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] SCC

I have changed SCC to the full text as it is never used that way in the books. However, GPP is used in both forms. I've put the quotes into the main body of the text. ••Briantist•• talk 22:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Also

Added a bit of structure and quotes from YZPIS ••Briantist•• talk 22:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hang on there

Look in the TV series it says the HHG says the corporation are "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes" and yet at no point does it say this in the article.83.70.46.216 15:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference to Microsoft

RenniePet says that linking the SCC to Microsoft is funny, but isn't in keeping with Wikipedia standards. I respectfully disagree, given that in phase four of the radio play (Quandary Phase) the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is explicitly credited (by Ford and the Guide both) with the invention of "the vast majority of computer operating systems" which is a clear Microsoft ref. DNA clearly intended the guide to be satirical, and an example of the sort of things he was satirising in real life is thoroughly appropriate. Furthermore, I think the section on GPP should have a link to the Microsoft Paperclip. Unless there's an argument to the contrary, I will un-delete my contribution in a couple of days time. James Haughton 02:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Your timing is wrong. The radio play was first broadcast in 1978. I'm pretty sure that the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation was in that original radio play. The book was printed in 1979, which did have this company. In either case, Microsoft was producing computer language products at that time. MS-DOS wasn't a Microsoft product until the early 1980's; I'm thinking 1981. At the time of the HHG2G, the dominant players in the personal computer market were Apple Inc. and Commodore Business Machines. Clippy didn't even come out until Microsoft Office 97.
I haven't heard the Quandary Phase. However, even with this quotation, you'll still need to provide an external, referencable source, you can't make the link. — Val42 03:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. How about "Many people see the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as a prescient metaphor for Microsoft". If one does a search, the analogy is widely drawn across the 'net. Although DNA didn't explicitly retrospectively draw the parallel as far as I know, he did say a lot of hostile (and funny) things about Microsoft. James Haughton 05:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sirius Cybernetics Corportation is definitely in the first radio broadcasts. Marvin is a product of SCC, and he complains about the automatic doors with personalities (also SCC products), and the bit about the SCC Marketing Dept. being "the first up against the wall when the revolution comes" is there, as is the song "Share and Enjoy".
If back in the 1970s Microsoft was the Microsoft we know today, then I'm sure SCC would have been modeled after Microsoft, and the humor would probably have been even more bitting. But it wasn't.
SCC was presumably modeled more on IBM (the dominant force in computing back then because of their mainframe computers) and DEC (who had become dominant in mini-computers - can anyone remember mini-computers? :-)
Too bad; SCC = Microsoft is a very engaging idea. --RenniePet 11:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that the SCC was modelled on Microsoft - as you point out, the chronology is wrong. I'm suggesting that DNA in his satire foresaw certain trends such as technological lock-in, the triumph of marketing and style over substance, attempts to make computers replace humans for service-industry tasks, etc, all of which were emerging in the seventies. He embodied these in the SCC. Microsoft is often seen as a paradigm case of actualising these trends and therefore a real-world example of the sort of thing DNA was (presciently) satirising. The fact that the Quandary and Quintessential phases (which I believe would have had to be approved by Douglas' estate) explicitly refer to the SCC producing computer operating systems, and that Douglas was extremely hostile to Microsoft (he wrote at least two articles mocking/insulting them), bear this out.

I'm not sure DNA would have had IBM or DEC in mind - he's on record as not really getting into computer technology until well after the radio show. I think he just had a general trend in mind.

More generally, can we agree that HHGG is, at least partly, a satire? As such, it is helpful to the unfamiliar reader to have examples of "the sorts of things" that it satirises. James Haughton 01:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

HHGG is very satirical. Douglas Adams was making fun of all sorts of things, and did a great job of it. But I still think it's a stretch to include Microsoft in the article based on the (very likely correct) conjecture that if Microsoft had been Microsoft back then, that Douglas Adams would surely have made fun of Microsoft. --RenniePet 16:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge article about Genuine People Personalities with this article?

Just noticed that there is a very small and not very well written article about Genuine People Personalities. My suggestion is that that article be merged with this one, as I've just written here: Talk:Genuine People Personalities --RenniePet 16:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

There wasn't any information in the GPP article that isn't already here, so I changed the GPP article to a redirect. — Val42 14:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)