HAL 9000
[video=youtube;E7WQ1tdxSqI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7WQ1tdxSqI[/video]
*In 1961 an IBM 704 became the first computer to sing, in a demonstration of Bell Labs' newly invented speech synthesis – and the song was "Daisy Bell". Vocals were programmed by John Kelly and Carol Lochbaum and the accompaniment was programmed by Max Mathews.
In 1974 auditory researchers used the melody for the first demonstration of "pure dichotic" (two-ear only) or "pure cyclotean" (one "ear" in the mind that combines the two external ears) perception. They encoded the melody in a stereo signal that could be perceived in the brain only by noticing the phase differences between what each ear heard.
Hence the 2001 reference. It's also rumoured that HAL got his name as the individual letters in HAL come after IBM in the alphabet.