The acronym INDA is used in the science fiction novels of Greg Bear
(specifically, in <Moving Mars>, <Slant>, and <Queen of Angels>) to
refer to a class of powerful computers. For what does INDA stand?

The acronym INDA is used in the science fiction novels of Greg Bear
(specifically, in <Moving Mars>, <Slant>, and <Queen of Angels>) to
refer to a class of powerful computers. For what does INDA stand?

Greetings:

I know from comments that have been posted to your question that you
have been informed of the official website for Greg Bear. That site's
URL address is http://www.gregbear.com. You've also been informed that
the site enables visitors to contact the author by way of e-mail
messages. I took the additional step of actually submitting such a
message to the author regarding the meaning of the acronym you noted
in your request. I have received a reply from Greg Bear which explains
the acronym as best he can.

Greg Bear has completed a number of books in series that differ in
continuity. Not surprisingly, the original intent behind details like
the INDA acronym can escape his memory from time to time. In his
e-mail reply Mr. Bear himself guesses that he meant INDA to mean
Independent Neural Data Analyzer. That is the best the author can
recall, so I hope you will accept it as the best available answer to
your request. I am pleased to be able to provide it to you.

In the interest of privacy I have not provided the specific e-mail
address from which Greg Bear replied. I'm sure you will have no
trouble contacting him through his official website. His prompt reply
indicates he is both candid and friendly.

I hope this helps,

Brettquest   


Sources and Links

Greg Bear: The Official Site
http://www.gregbear.com

Greg Bear: Contact Form
http://www.gregbear.com/A55885/Contact.nsf/Contact?OpenForm

Email reply from author Greg Bear, received October 12, 2002.


Search Strategies:

Google Search: "Greg Bear"
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Google Search: "Greg Bear" "INDA"
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Nice job. Thanks to you, and also to pinkfreud, for the good research.

I haven't found the meaning of this acronym, but here is an
interesting speech by Greg Bear on the subject of petaflops computers:

http://www.gregbear.com/A55885/Bear.nsf/pages/300039

His site says "Have you read something of Greg's that you'd like to
comment on, or ask questions about? Greg does his best to respond to
all of his mail." You can ask the author a question here:

http://www.gregbear.com/A55885/Contact.nsf/Contact?OpenForm

And of course, you might find it doesn't mean anything at all, that's
it's just something the author put in to create a sense of reality -
everbody knows that computers are defined by acronyms, so he created
one that he would use as a generic supercomputer in his work. Writers
make up stuff like that all the time :)

Willie