I don't know what "Pilot" is, but Microsoft's
copilot did take two tries to get it right.
First try:
Me: From MVT days, what does HASP stand for?
Copilot: In IBMs MVT (Multiprogramming with a
Variable number of Tasks) era, HASP stood for
Houston Automatic Spooling Priority.
On the second try, I corrected him and then asked
where the word "priority" came from, and he
explained! [The short answer is it came from a human.]
Me: Close. It's "Houston Automatic Spooling
Processor", not "Houston Automatic Spooling
Priority". Where did you get the word "priority" from?
Copilot: Youre absolutely right the correct
expansion is Houston Automatic Spooling Processor.
The priority slip comes from a bit of
historical drift in documentation and recollection. Heres what happened:
* Original meaning (accurate): HASP was
written at NASAs Johnson Space Center in
Houston, and the acronym was always Processor.
It was designed to manage spooling (queueing
jobs and output) for IBMs OS/360 MVT systems.
* Where priority crept in: Some secondary
sources and informal write ups in the 1970s80s
described HASP as handling spooling priority
because one of its key functions was to
assign and manage output/input priorities. Over
time, a few people mistakenly folded that function into the acronym itself.
I think it's interesting that Copilot can provide
reasonably good self analysis.
Bottom line, talking to Copilot is much like
talking to a human. He's exceedingly
knowledgeable, but he's not always right. And
just like with any real person, I have to be
alert for that. Generally, with a bit of
discussion, we can usually zero in on the truth.
Dave
At 11/16/25 11:23 AM, Seymour J Metz wrote:
A new achievement in artificial stupidity; pilot
informs me the HASP stands for Houston Attached
Support Processor. They really need to change
the scoring algorithm to penalize wrong answers
more than "don't know". --Â Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
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