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+## Copyright (C) 2004 John W. Eaton
+##
+## This file is part of Octave.
+##
+## Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+## under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+## the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
+## any later version.
+##
+## Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
+## General Public License for more details.
+##
+## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+## along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
+## Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
+## 02111-1307, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} computer ()
+## Print or return a string of the form @var{cpu}-@var{vendor}-@var{os}
+## that identifies the kind of computer Octave is running on.  If invoked
+## with an output argument, the value is returned instead of printed.  For
+## example,
+##
+## @example
+## @group
+## computer ()
+##      @print{} i586-pc-linux-gnu
+##
+## x = computer ()
+##      @result{} x = "i586-pc-linux-gnu"
+## @end group
+## @end example
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function retval = computer ()
+
+  if (nargin != 0)
+    warning ("computer: ignoring extra arguments");
+  endif
+
+  msg = octave_config_info ("canonical_host_type");
+
+  if (strcmp (msg, "unknown"))
+    msg = "Hi Dave, I'm a HAL-9000";
+  endif
+
+  if (nargout == 0)
+    printf ("%s\n", msg);
+  else
+    retval = msg;
+  endif
+
+endfunction