How much will the new HAL cost ?

[rbolo25]

i been thinking about purchasing this software...my only concern is the cost of it and if it will be worth it.  I plan on running it on my 470MB RAM drive...i would hope this is enough room atleast for the database.  My main interest would be to program HAL to make it more functional and smarter...i understand that it can be programmed in VB Script and was written in VB.  I write programs in Visual Basic 6.  Would be nice to get source code for HAL

[Don Ferguson]

Hello,

The value of a program depends entirely on how much you use it and how much you are interested in it.

I'm interested in Artificial Intelligence, natural language processing, 3d graphics, computer animation, speech synthesis, voice recognition, etc., so I think that "all of the above" for around $40 is an incredible bargain!

Dinner for two often costs over $40; it's easy to spend $40 taking the family to a movie; a lot of people are paying $600/year for cable TV and $40/month for cell phone service; the comparisons can go on and on, and it's all a matter of personal taste and opinion.  Bottled water costs more per gallon than both milk and gasoline... go figure! I can't resist one more: I bought a two-pack of black ink cartidges for my printer yesterday for $52 plus tax.  I was GRATEFUL for the "bargain" price of $52 for a few ounces of black ink!

Zabaware is a small company with a specialized product.  They don't have the tiniest fraction of the resources of a Microsoft, yet they've provided all of us with a product with more features than anyone else provides. Zabaware has about 250,000 people who have downloaded the FREE version, and Zabaware still provides what support they can, even to people who haven't paid them anything.

I want to see Zabaware prosper, grow, and keep all of us in updates and enhancements for many years to come!

By the way, I've been trying out Beta Hal 5, and I've discovered that its voice-recognition module can be easily enabled to operate on my computer with nearly ALL my programs! (Go to the little "speech bar" at the bottom of the screen and click OPTIONS/SETTINGS/ADVANCED and click the box for "Extend support of advanced text services to all programs.") Thanks to Hal 5, I now have voice recognition on Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and E-Mail!

The Visual Basic Scripting program that controls Hal is human-readable and editable.  That gives you control over 99% of what Hal does.  I've never tried to decompile and view the .exe or .dll files, but I will say that Zabaware has been incredibly open in sharing the internal workings of its product to the developer, hobbyist, and experimenter community.

Regardless of what you decide, I'm glad you're here on the forum and I hope you continue to use Hal and continue to share your thoughts and experiences with all of us!

Sincerely,

Don

[vonsmith]

I agree with Don. Ultra Hal is a bargain... but only if you're one of those people who are interested in A.I. and chatbots. It is a specialized product. I currently don't get much "utility" out of Hal. For me Hal is a toy, albeit a very interesting toy. My enjoyment comes from spending a few hours per week modifying Hal's operation or applying some of the mod's generously posted here on the forum. Experimenting is the challenging and fun part for me. I took a couple of A.I. and robotics courses in college a handful of years ago and Hal gives me an opportunity to refresh some of that knowledge and have fun.

I think the future possibilities for Hal and his ilk are unlimited. In the long run I'm hoping to modify Hal to interactively read e-books and converse with the user about the books. I'm also toying with the idea of making Hal a docent, a sort of expert guide, for a non-profit museum. I hope to train Hal to answer questions, offer historical info, provide directions and provide other services to museum guests through a Hal kiosk.

Bring on version 5.0!

= vonsmith =

[midget1488]

Hal is a bargain at this price. I spent close to a year fooling with the source code to Omnibot to get it to do what I wanted, and Hal was there right away (not to take anything away from Jon Reder's Omnibot. It's a fantastic effort and he sells the source code for $25 in visual basic. You could get to Hal through modifying Omnibot, but hey, here's Hal already). A year's labor for an additional $25 ain't too shabby.

I very much like the fact that Hal can be manipulated so effectively WITHOUT fooling with the actual executable. The possibilities are huge, but the downside risk is minimized. This "modularity" of approach is brilliant, and lends itself to all us hacks having more fun and less frustration.

What's next? emotions? an "ego" and an "id" for Hal? Why not?

Go, Robert!

Doug

[brianstorm]

What's next indeed! >B)

dittos on all that- especially the part Don sed about wanting to see Zabaware
succeed and prosper.
Mann, this new Interface rules! What will 9.0 be like???

CatA

[vonsmith]

Good point midget1488,
I think Hal displays some emotion already, although it is very basic. Hal could be give a personality and more emotions with the current technology. I have been giving this a little thought lately. Responses to user input could be made more dependent on Hal's mood by tailoring the responses. This could be based on different .brn response files for different moods or modification to normal responses according to mood.

First thing however is for Hal to have more emotions. Hal has a few basic emotions, just try insulting Hal and you'll find out what I mean. I want to expand the emotional gamut. I've been playing with the idea for a few weeks. I'll post the code here if anything works out. The ultimate goal would be for Hal to "develop" his/her own personality.

Another thing I've been thinking of is providing Hal with the capability to assess the user's current mood and respond to it. I've got a method to do this conceptually worked out that looks pretty simple to implement. A minor, but key challenge, is trying to figure out a way to make the concept work using the current .dll functions. I wish I had more detailed info on the internal workings of some of the .dll functions.

One thing is for certain. Good things are ahead for Hal.

= vonsmith =