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"I received a nice letter the other day from the Dalai Lama. He had read 'The Nine Billion Names of God'. It is about a computer at a Tibetan monastery."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Screensaver (Inventor of) | ||
| Screen savers are used to prevent phosphor burnout in CRTs, and to provide restful entertainment on computer screens. |
As far as I know, this is the first reference to what later became known as "screensavers." The current implementation of the aquarium screensaver is pretty good, but only in two dimensions.
| They went to the living room; Jill sat at his feet and they applied themselves to martinis. Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known winchell Augustus Greaves. |
| Technovelgy from Stranger in a Strange Land,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Putnam in 1961 Additional resources -
|
For those who have already forgotten, "screen savers" received their name because they were used on computers that used cathode ray tubes as output devices. A CRT uses an electron gun to shoot particles at the phosphor on the back of the screen, causing tiny points of light to appear; constantly varying the images prevents the screen phosphor from being permanently marked if the electron gun points at the same point of the screen.
Today, of course, screen saver is a term for something entertaining to put on your computer screen while you are not doing anything with it.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Stranger in a Strange Land
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Stranger in a Strange Land
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Screensaver (Inventor of)-related
news articles:
- Electric Sheep Distributed Screen-Saver: Collective Computer Unconsious
| ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'? |
| Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer |
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
