#30 Widget

Who knew that robots would ever amount to so much? After all, their school reports were always so mediocre... "Little Robby understands the practical applications of metaphysics, and has an appreciation for the Renaissance painters, but has a tendency to torment his fellow pupils before blasting them with his ray gun eyes". "Mickey tries hard but can sometimes go a bit 'HAL9000'. When I asked him to sit down and be quiet he said - 'I know you and Frank are planning to seat me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen'. I don't even know who Frank is". Distraught teachers aside, nowadays we rely on tiny robots to practically run our lives. Not only that, but little Robby's great great grandson's brains now power my waffle iron. Amazing!

If 'Batteries Not Included' taught us one thing it's that if your apartment building is about to be torn down by faceless corporate America you can rely on robots from outerspace to lend you a helping hand. And if that, and toasting waffles is all they ever achieve, they can power down happy. But wait! Here we have a robot who made a name for himself in the world of music. A robot who tore up the user manual and dared to press 'Control Alt Funk'.

The Dave Matthews Band, Van Halen, and The Barry Manilow Experience. Everyone knows that the greatest bands are named after their lead singer. The band Widget were no exception, taking their name from main protagonist Widget 2000. The band consisted Widget on all instruments and six Servers at the University of California which ensured Widget kept in time, tune and within legal levels of decibels. For all intents and purposes Widget was a computer chip inside a large box. Despite this, he was a dashing young android with the computing power of two and a half Carol Vodermans, and the looks of a robot James Dean. Widget was originally designed by professors at the University of California, having been commissioned by the Secretary of Defence. He was going to be the next big thing in human cyborg relations - a cold merciless killing machine. But, just like Vin Diesel and 1980s Action Man, he had a beautiful singing voice. It was this that saved him from a life of time, grime and war crimes. Having been fitted with one of the earliest form of artificial intelligence he quickly developed complex self awareness and could even tell the difference between some reds and greens, despite being colour blind.

The band were nurtured by the professors at UCLA and encouraged to produce music. Widget's combined relay protocol transfer system networking capabilities made them the most prolific song writers in the business. By the end of their career they had produced over thirty five thousand albums. The most noteworthy include:

Binary and Finery
Mean Machine
I, Widget
Cyborg Relations
By-Onyx
Mega Bits/Mega Bucks! (The Best Of)
01101001011011100010000001110100
0110100001100101001000000110001
0011000010110001001111001001000
0001101101011000010110101101100
1010111001001110011001000000110
0010011000010110001001111001
Rickypedia (Edit Him At Your Peril (Cos He Has Laser Gun Knees))
Raindrops and Petticoats
Automaton Love
Eh? Aye!
I love 01011001 01001000 01001110 01001000

They have been so productive that instead of a year of release, each title is given a time and date of release. In one night alone the septet had written, recorded and mastered twelve thousand songs. Seminal work "The Appliance of Violence", which hit the charts at 4:05am on 15 March 1972, is their magnum opus. It charts Widget 2000's early battles with current abuse and domestic violence. The sounds he emitted from his tonebox on this album were without doubt some of the freshest, tastiest bytes ever produced. Their live performances were their tour de force. A Widget gig was sort of like playing a Spectrum ZX with your eyes closed, without touching any buttons and whilst standing next to a hundred or so other people wearing 'I Heart Linux' and 'Jobs for President' t-shirts doing exactly the same.

Wheeled onto stage by burly roadies he would sit centre stage, with the Servers appearing on big screens behind him. San Antonio 12 May 1978. The finest gig to ever feature a robot performer live linked to to the rest of his band. Widget busted out a superb blend of classics, new songs and an acoustic half hour that drained the milliamps for a radius of three miles. "Is everybody feeling adequately entertained and refreshed?" Widget quipped (he always had a great rapport with his fans). "My memory circuits are telling me that you have provided satisfactory levels of appreciation tonight. For that my pleasure unit is thankful". It was then, during his fifth encore that he broke out the Ms Pacman theme. Well, what can you say to that. It wasnt until primates started throwing barrels and foxes started piloting sophisticated spacecraft in the 80s that geeks would again wet themselves in unison with such aplomb.

At their height Widget regularly appeared in the popular Computer and Robotics periodicals of the day and could count Dolly Parton and Donald Trump amongst their famous fans. However, by the end of the 70s Widget's antics became more bizarre as the power went to his head. Central to the problems was his relationship with hot to trot celebrity of the day - Deep Blue. Believe it or not IBM were happy for their protégé to date Widget. They felt it was healthy for two young brilliant minds to want to do what they computed appropriate. Widget rejected the suggestion that the relationship was a publicity stunt at the couples fifth vow renewal. Despite this it wasn't long after that they declared themselves "incompatible". Rumour has it that that a dashing young Russian named Gary Kasparov had come between them. Two days after the public break-up, whilst on stage in San Fransisco, Widget declared himself king of all Transformers. He managed to bend himself into the shape of a unicorn riding a panda before short circuiting. It was the beginning of the end for Widget the band. The Servers were getting angsty at not being able to be present at their gigs, and motioned for a change of name to 'Widget and the Servers'. Truth be told they just wanted a piece of the Parton.

On 17 December 1982 Widget was pronounced obsolete - beyond patching and after they realised defragging really wasn't doing anything. Widget may be long gone but his memory lives on (it was the only salvageable part of him). The Servers continue to make music to this day as a six piece Barbershop Quartet. Just weeks after he powered down it was released that he had a particularly virulent Trojan - probably introduced by USB stick whilst his firewall was down. Gary Kasparov - I'm looking at you here.

So, each time you put on an audio disc, play Space Invaders at your local arcade or boot up your BBC Micro just remember - there is a little bit of Widget in there. Who knows, one day there may even be a full motion robot band whose metallic, boxy, warblings will have us getting our old LPs out and saying "you do know that they are just a Widget rip off son?". In the mean time if it is monotone tunes devoid of emotion you are after you may have to stick the next best thing. The new Athlete album is out in September.