quote:At Uni some boffins wrote software way, way before Windows that would respond to any question in a seemingly intelligent, but actually random, manner!
In fact it was an computer programme called Eliza that I remember did exactly that!
quote:ELIZA is a computer program by Joseph Weizenbaum, designed in 1966, which parodied a Rogerian therapist, largely by rephrasing many of the patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. Thus, for example, the response to "My head hurts" might be "Why do you say your head hurts?" The response to "My mother hates me" might be "Who else in your family hates you?" ELIZA was named after Eliza Doolittle, a working-class character in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, who is taught to speak with an upper class accent.
Thats the Wikipedia entry.
I remember a cut down version being made available for the RML 380Z - very convincing!
Paul
