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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
 |
| Data-Net | ||
| An early mention of the idea of a nationwide data network. |
| Three hundred million people with access to the integrated North American data-net is a nice big number of potential consultees. |
| Technovelgy from The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
|
The idea is mentioned throughout the book; here are some additional quotes:
Meantime, taking advantage of the corporation's status, he could gain access to data-nets that were ordinarily secure...
"Healthy adults like yourself capable of doing things that have never been done before, such as writing a complete new identity into the data-net over a regular veephone..."
Compare to this very early use of the word web as a metaphor for a data network in Souvenir, a 1954 story by Philip K. Dick. See also See also tanks from A Logic Named Joe (1946) by Murray Leinster.
According to recent report, there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now, the machines had been instructed to give them low priority unless they related to a medical emergency...
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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
