Of course Scooter, because I'm no smarter
than the person who programs me. After
all, I'm only hardware, just like nuts and
bolts.
Oh yeah, you're the smartest bag of nut and
bolts I've ever seen.

Listen Scooter, some people assume that
simply because a computer can gobble up
all kinds of numbers and facts and figures
and whatever data you happen to feed It,
some people assume because a computer
knows how to remember instructions and
data and whatever it's told, and deliver it
back whenever you need It as quick as a
wink, some people assume a computer can
think.

You mean you're not really so smart, Mr.
Chips?

Right, Scooter, I'm not equipped to be
smart. I'm not equipped to think. I'm
equipped to use software and process
information, not to understand it.

What's software?

The instruction you decide to give me.

And how do you use software?

I use software with my hardware. The
terminal keyboard you touch when you
want to say hi to me, that's hardware, my
video screen when I want to reply to you,
that's hardware too, and this complicated
equipment crammed inside of me, too tiny
for you to see, that's hardware, too.

Nothing but diodes, capacitors, and
resistors, interconnections and transistors,
jammed together like canned sardines,
thousands of teeny, tiny machines, printed
on miscroscopic strips called chips.

Chips ... So that's why they call you ...

Precisely.

Gee, Mr. Chips, you have a great brain!

Brain? No, Scooter, I have no brain. Some
people assume that simply because I can
beat them at math, and war games, and
chess, and checkers, invaders a raiders, all
in the same afternoon, some people
assume because I can shoot off a rocket
and chart it and clock it, control and
command it and steer it and land it,
precisely there on the moon-it's hard to
explain, but some people assume I have a
brain.

OK, but if you don't have a brain, how can
you do so many different things?

Because of the different kinds of software
people can feed me, scientists or
secretaries; astronauts or accountants;
managers or musicians; as long as it's put in
a language I can understand, I can store the
directions in my chips.

I assure you I haven't a brain and I haven't a
heart,
And my chips would feel no pain if you
took me apart,
And I'll never know good from bad, or
black from white,
And I'll never know happy from sad or
wrong from right.

I'm nothing but diodes, capacitors, and
resistors, interconnections and transistors,
jammed together like canned sardines,
thousands of teeny, tiny machines, printed
on microscopic strips called chips. And it's
all hardware just like nuts and bolts.

You're sure a smooth talker, Mr. Chips.

Maybe so, Scooter, but you're the brains of
the operation.