Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Virtual Reality Video Game | ||
| A description of a computer game simulation played in real time as entertainment. |
Forrester is several hundred years behind the times; a small boy demonstrates the entertainment and simulation capabilities of the view-walls in his parent's apartment.
| At once the cluttered children's room disappeared...
...Forrester and the two children were seated in the bridge of a spaceship. The toys were gone, the furnishings replaced by bright metal instruments... Forrester could not repress his admiration for the perfection of the illusion. Everything was there, everything but the heat and the feeling of motion - and, gazing at the images around him, Forrester could almost feel the surge and shudder of their ship as it responded to the boy's touch at the controls. Clearly, they were part of a squadron on some adventurous, unspecified mission... A spatter of command signals came forth through the speaker as the other "ships" talked back and forth. A panel showed their position in plan and elevation as they swam through the stripped-atom gases of Mira Ceti's ocean of fire. Forrester cleared his throat. "Would you mind telling me exactly what we just did?" he asked. The boy put on his patient expression. "It was a simulated mission against the Sirian exploring party in the chromosphere of Mira Ceti... Basically a real observation, but with the contact between our ship and theirs variably emended. |
| From The Age of The Pussyfoot,
by Frederik Pohl. Published by Ballantine in 1966 Additional resources -
|
Note the use of an inset panel that shows different views of the user's ship in relation to its surroundings.
When Forrester asks his own joymaker how the device works, it responds as follows:
Compare this to the Saga simulation from Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars, the reference for cyberspace, by William Gibson, the virtual matrix from The Judas Mandala (1982) by Damien Broderick and the Saga simulation from Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars. Note also the DreamTime Scleral Contact Lenses From The California Voodoo Game (1992) by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes). Also, see the The Veldt from Ray Bradbury's work.
"The phenomenon you are currently inspecting, Man Forrester, is a photic projection on a vibratory curtain. An interference effect produces a virtual image on the surface of an optical sphere with the nexus of yourself and your companions as its geometric center. This particular contruct is an edited and simplified reproduction of scansion of a Sirian exploration vessel in a stellar atmosphere..."
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Age of The Pussyfoot
More Ideas
and Technology by Frederik Pohl
Tech news articles related to The Age of The Pussyfoot
Tech news articles related to works by Frederik Pohl
| MSG Sphere Las Vegas, ala Star Wars |
| Actors Reject, Makers Embrace, Posthumous Movie Resurrection |
| Will Future Games Require Hallucinogens ala Phil Dick? |
| Emoti-Chair Lets You Hear Through Your Skin |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Very tiny pseudo insects that... can unite to form a superordinate system.'
Great, an autonomous slamhound. It is cute, though.
'The smoky globe, hung in the vault, was shot with colored light...'
'The electric cook was stirring empty nothing in a pan, with a zeal worthy a dozen eggs.'
