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Definition: HAL


(1) An interface between hardware and software. See hardware abstraction layer.

(2) (Heuristic/ALgorithmic) The name of the computer that took over command of the spaceship in Stanley Kubrick's famous film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Each letter in H-A-L precedes the letters I-B-M. When the movie was released in 1968, IBM controlled almost every aspect of the computer industry; however, the HAL-IBM connection was supposedly a coincidence.