My work load increased. The printer printed out codes and numbers of logic cells, and announced where and how they should be added. At first the computer was satisfied with standard cells. I mounted them on auxiliary panels.
(I'm only beginning to realize it now, but that was precisely the moment, if you look at it academically, that I made a grave methodological error in my work. I should have stopped and figured out just what circuits and logic my complex was building for itself: the sensors, crystal unit and TsVM — 12 with an increased memory. And then, only when I had it figured out, move on. And when you think about it, a computer building itself without being programmed to do so — what a terrific dissertation topic! If I had done it right, I could have gotten a doctorate right there.
But curiosity took over. The complex was obviously straining to develop. But why? To understand man? It didn't look like it. The computer seemed quite satisfied that I understood it and diligently carried out my commands. People make machines for their own aims. But what kind of aims could a machine have? Or maybe it wasn't an aim, but a kind of innate accumulation instinct, which is found in all systems of a certain complexity, be they earthworms or electrical machines? And what limits would the complex reach?
It was then that I let loose the reins — and I still don't know whether that was good or bad….)
In mid — March the computer, which had evidently learned from Monomakh's Crown about the latest developments in electronics, began asking for cryosars and cryotrons, runnel transistors, film circuits, micromatrices…. I had no time for analysis; I was rushing all over the institute and the whole city, wheeling and dealing, lying and cajoling, trying to get my hands on all this chic stuff.
And it was all for nothing. A month later the computer “got bored” with electronics and “took up” chemistry.
Actually, this shouldn't have been unexpected either: the computer had chosen the best way to build itself. After all, chemistry is nature's way. Nature had neither soldering irons nor cranes, nor welders, nor motors, not even shovels — it merely combined chemicals, heated and cooled them, lit them, boiled them… and that's how every living thing on earth came about.
That was the point, that everything the computer did was consecutive and logical! Even its desires for me to put on Monomakh's Crown — and that was the most frequent request — were transparent.
Rather than process raw information from photo, sound, smell, and other sensors, it was much easier to use information already processed by me. In science, many do that.
But, my God, what reagents the computer demanded: from distilled water to sodium trimethyldyphtorparaamintetrachlorphenylsulfate and from DNA and RNA to a specific brand of gasoline! And the convoluted technological circuits I had to get!
The lab was changing into a medieval alchemist's den before my very eyes; it was filled with bottles, two — necked flasks, autoclaves, and stills. I connected them with hoses, glass tubing, and wires. My supply of reagents and glass was depleted in a week and I had to requisition more and more.
The noble, soothing electrical smells, rosin and heated insulation, were replaced with the swampy miasmas of acids, ammonia, vinegar, and God knows what else. I wandered lost in these chemical jungles. The stills and hoses bubbled, gurgled, and sighed. The mixtures in the flasks and bottles fermented and changed color; they precipitated, dissolved, and regenerated metallic pulsating clumps and pieces of shimmering gray threads. I poured and sprinkled according to the computer's directions and understood nothing.
Then, the computer suddenly asked for four more automatic printers. I was happy: so the computer was interested in something other than chemistry! I worked at it, got the stuff, connected it… and off it went!
(Probably, this was the point at which I created Ashby's “power information retrieval” or something like it. Who knows! That was when I became hopelessly confused.)
Now the lab sounded like a typing pool. The machines were printing out numbers. Paper ribbon with columns of numbers poured out of the machines like manna from heaven. I rolled up the tapes, picked out the words separated by spaces, translated them, and made sentences.
The “true” phrases were very strange and enigmatic. For example: “…. twenty — six kopeks, like from Berdichev.” That was one of the first. Was that a fact, a thought? Or a hint? How about this: “An onion like a steel wound….” It resembles Mayakovsky's “A street like an open wound.” But what does it mean? Is it a pathetic imitation? Or maybe a poetic discovery that contemporary poets haven't reached yet?
I deciphered another tape: “The tenderness of souls, taken in Taylor's series expansion, in the limits of zero to infinity comes down to a biharmonic function.” Well put, no?