Message-ID: <670@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jun-83 13:38:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.670
Posted: Fri Jun 17 13:38:23 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jun-83 06:36:49 EDT
Organization: RLG Corp., Reston, VA
Lines: 45

References: <206@gatech.UUCP> <489@watcgl.UUCP>

In response to the question about who the REAL heroes of the Star Wars
saga are:

You are quite right.  There IS something very special about the `droids.
At last the truth can be told (although marketing is obligated to deny it
until the yet-to-be-born Empire is reborn).

R2-D2 and C3PO were/will be/are being (depending on your time perspective)
programmed by us here at RLG Corporation (aka CCI, Office Systems Group).
We are in the midst of it now, and anticipate finishing sometime very far
in the future in a galaxy very far away.

The reason it will take so long is that we have been taking John Mashey's
talks at the UNIX conferences to heart.  We are working on a "small is
beautiful" concept so we have a very small staff working on the project
(particularly small when you consider that the project is essential for
the salvation of the Empire).  This also explains R2-D2's height.  We are
also employing the scouts, fast prototypers, et. al. from Mashey's "A Tale
of Bulldozers and Motorcycles".  We anticipate that Robbie the Robot is
actually the result of one of our future fast prototypers.

Perhaps the most interesting point of the project is that the 'droids
are not the direct result of an AI project, as might be suspected.  Rather
our attempts to program these clever little 'droids are the direct result
of the combined requests from marketing for "essential" features in
"OfficePower", our Office Automation product.

As proof of my claim, you can easily see that R2-D2's extreme hardiness
and durability is the consequence of CCI's "PerpetualProcessing" fault-
tolerant design.


- Tom Beres
RLG Corporation / Computer Consoles, Inc.
{allegra, seismo, we13, mcnc, brl-bmd}!rlgvax!tom


PS -    There is yet no proof to the claim that the breakup of Ma Bell
	will result in the eventual evolution of Bell Labs into the Jedi
	Knights.  However, we feel quite sure that the underlying battle
	between the good and the dark sides of The Force is actually yet
	another instantiation of the age-old conflict between ASCII and
	EBCDIC.