Miles Bennett Dyson
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Miles Dyson just before he blows up the Cyberdyne building. |
Dr.
Miles Bennett Dyson (1951?-1995) is an integral character in the fictional
Terminator universe, portrayed by
Joe Morton in 1991's big-budget
Terminator sequel,
Terminator 2: Judgment Day. His primary importance is as the inventor of
Skynet and associated technologies, such as
neural networks and advanced
microprocessors. He is
Director of Special Projects at
Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, and therefore "the man most directly responsible" for Judgment Day.
In the film, Dyson is convinced by Sarah Connor, John Connor and a visiting T-800 to enact a direct inversion of history, ultimately perishing along with his enterprising AI research as Cyberdyne headquarters is destroyed by a
polydichloric euthimal bomb. He is survived by his wife and children.
In some
apocryphal Terminator novels, Miles Dyson's research is completed by his son, Daniel.
A large measure of Miles' career at Cyberdyne Systems was devoted to the analysis and
reverse engineering of two mysterious artifacts -- the only part of the Terminator from the first film which wasn't crushed by the hydraulic press (its right arm), and its brain chip, rescued but severely damaged. His regard for these articles was reverential, their decipherment a personal obsession. However until his visit from the Connors, he is completely unaware of their origin, only having received the response, "don't ask", when he inquired about them at Cyberdyne.
The design of his large model prototype is notable for its
hypercube shape, an advancement and miniaturization of the "Connection Machine 2" arrangement, developed in the late 1980's by
Thinking Machines corporation.
Miles' reasoning behind this design was simple: the system, in order to successfully emulate human thought, had to be massively parallel, and that required excellent communication channels between its processors. Hence, it needed many "blocks," each stuffed with processors. And while local communication within a block would be readily and inherently supported, there also needed to exist large data conduits between them to allow more limited long-range communication. "It's like neurons and axons in Legos," he once commented in an interview with
Omni magazine.
The miniature blocks also served another purpose: their silicon innards were solid, printed in three dimensions. This Cyberdyne innovation sent them years beyond the capacity of contemporary flat-chip processors.
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Cyberdyne Systems Filming Location*
'T2 and Technology', an essay by chief technical consultant Larry Yeager
