I loved to play Scrabble on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and was intrigued by the dialogue it gave me: ‘the computer is thinking’ as I waited for it to play its move. In reality a cover-up for its processing power of a mere 48k RAM.
I am interested in the differences and comparisons in processing ability between a computer and a brain.
The text of this piece comes from Roget’s Thesaurus. It spells out the opening sections of “Class Four INTELLECT, Division (I): Formation of Ideas, Subsection 447. Intellect”. The soundtrack is a merger of an analogue tape recording of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum loading software with the audio from a classic Spectrum game.
Typographer Zuzana Licko says “We read best what we read most” – if I watch this film enough times, I can begin to decipher the words it contains. Am I ‘improving’ my own processing power? The 48k of a ZX Spectrum can achieve some tasks far faster than I ever can, yet a cat has superior processing power to an Apple iPad.
