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"Every scientist worth his salt that I know of has read science fiction."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Wristpad | ||
| A tablet computer worn on the wrist. |
| They were up on the crest, in fact, one afternoon near sunset, when John looked up from the equation on his wristpad, and stared up the long slope toward Olympus Mons... "Look at that," he said to the others, and pointed. "A dust storm." John called up the weather satellite photos on his wristpad. ... Frank was cursing into his wristpad, switching between Arabic and English. Trying vainly to find out what had happened... Nadia looked fearfully at the little images on her wrist, directing the robot cameras with dread. Shattered rovers. Some bodies. Nothing moved. One rover still smoked. ... He walked feeling lighter, chattering into his wristpad’s diary file as he went. “The park reminds me of what Orwell said about Barcelona in the hands of the anarchists; it is the euphoria of a new social contract, of a return to that child’s dream of fairness we all began with-” His wristpad beeped and Phyllis’s face appeared on the tiny screen, which was annoying. “What do you want?” he asked. |
| Technovelgy from Red Mars,
by Kim Stanley Robinson. Published by Random House in 1992 Additional resources -
|
Robinson uses this in New York: 2140 (2017):
Clark Perry uses the same word in Red Dreams (1994):
Compare to the Wrist Search Display from A Matter of Size (1934) by Harry Bates,
Wireless Wrist Intercom from The Shape of Things To Come (1936) by H.G. Wells,
Reserve Bracelet from Plague (1944) by Murray Leinster,
Tattletale from The Game Players of Titan (1963) by Philip K. Dick,
Wristband Viewer from Changeling (1980) by Roger Zelazny,
Implant-Watch from Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven,
Predator Wrist Display from Predator (1987) by John McTierna,
Wrist Command from Tides of Light (1989) by Gregory Benford,
Tracking Bracelet from Shadowspeer (1990) by Patricia Jo Clayton,
Inertial Bracelet from Psychohistorical Crisis (2001) by Donald Kingsbury and the
Command Bracelet from Sagramanda (2006) by Alan Dean Foster.
Charlotte Armstrong's alarm went off and she jabbed her wristpad. Time to go home...
They walked toward the nearest tower. At its base was a winch with a small elevator car, designed to slide out over the abyss where it could be lowered. Freddie reluctantly entered the small cage. Anna followed and closed the wire-mesh door behind them. She pressed buttons on her wristpad, activating the winch’s radio mechanism. The elevator car was quietly wheeled out over the edge of the dark hole. She pressed another button and they started down.
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'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
'... with the Master-operator all you have to do is push one! A remarkable achievement!'
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
