Eddie the Computer

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Eddie is the shipboard computer aboard the Heart of Gold. He is programmed with the personality of an overly happy person, someone who is pleasant in an unpleasant way. He has a GPP, or Genuine Person Personality (see Sirius Cybernetics Corporation). It is described as being "brash and cheery as if it was selling detergent". Later in the series he is shown to get sarcastic and dry when aggravated or overtaxed. He is capable of carrying on conversations with the crew and records everything he says on a ticker tape.

Eddie controls and permeates the whole of the Heart of Gold. He can manipulate navigation, defense, weapons, shielding, the Improbability Drive, escape pods, airlocks, and various other systems. He is capable of talking with other computers aboard the ship such as doors and Nutri-Matic food systems. He has a massive computer memory but it is capable of being filled by exceptionally large requests (such as, for example, how to make tea). The semi-offical Eoin Colfer novel And Another Thing... has Eddie replaced by Zaphod's detached second head, thereafter refereed to as Left Brain. He is shown to be more competent and causes less accidents than Eddie (having been Zaphod's smarter head), but can still be overtaxed and frozen.