This is cool, but I hate that the article basically says "you should just watch the video and I'm going to report on essentially nothing." No motherfucker. I want to read it.
The Rifts RPG by Palladium Books had a sourcebook with an insane AI/supercomputer named A.R.C.H.I.E. that survived a nuclear apocalypse. It controlled a robotics factory to build an army of killer robots that it planned to rebuild humanity with. Rifts came out in 1990 (that sourcebook in 1991), about a year/two after this Archie system came out. I wonder if the writer, Kevin Sembieda, took it as inspiration and assumed this search engine would one day morph into an AI? Interestingly, many of the search engines of today seem to be trying to reinvent themselves as AI services, so it may not have been that far off the mark, just don’t give them control of any robots.
And now guyrocket is too embarrassed to admit they thought they were making a funny joke and didn’t realize they were 32 years too late to the punchline.
Jughead is apparently still around too, and the source is up on Savannah, just been renamed to "jugtail" to avoid potential trademark issues. Dunno if anyone's actually running any instances, though.
I was not just making a joke, amigo. I am old enough that I used this stuff back in the day. I graduated from dialing into BBSes on my Commode 64 to this stuff. And I am amazed and happy that it is still around.