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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
 |
| Portal | ||
| Sensory experience of a data network. |
Although most people credit William Gibson for inventing cyberspace, a reading of the following passage should convince you that Vernor Vinge was several years ahead.
| He powered up his processors, settled back in his favorite chair, and carefully attached the Portal's five sucker electrodes to his scalp. For long minutes nothing happened: a certain amount of self-denial - or at least self-hypnosis - was necessary to make the ascent. Some experts recommended drugs or sensory isolation to heighten the user's sensitivity to the faint, ambiguous signals that could be read from the Portal... And just as a daydreamer forgets his actual surroundings, and sees other realities, so Pollack drifted, detached, his subconscious interpreting the status of the West Coast communications and data services as a vague thicket for his conscious mind to inspect and interrogate for the safest path... The correct path had the aspect of a narrow row of stones cutting through a grayish-green swamp... The subconscious knew what the stones represented, handled the chaining of routines from one information net to another, but it was the conscious mind of the skilled traveler that must make the decisions... |
| Technovelgy from True Names,
by Vernor Vinge. Published by Dell Binary Star in 1981 Additional resources -
|
Here is another short excerpt to show what a user of the portal can accomplish:
There is a lot more detail, both psychological and technical, in the short novel.
See also the reference for cyberspace, by William Gibson, the virtual matrix from The Judas Mandala (1982) by Damien Broderick, the virtual reality video game from The Age of The Pussyfoot (1966) by Frederik Pohl and the Saga simulation from Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars.
For virtual reality-stale gaming systems, be sure to see dimensino - alien entertainment center from Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford Simak (1961) and rifle range - virtual skeet shooting designed by aliens from Way Station also by Simak (1963).
The earliest use of the term "virtual reality is probably found in Antonin Artaud's The Theatre and Its Double (1938). He describes theater as "la realite virtuelle", literally a virtual reality "in which characters, objects, and images take on the phantasmagoric force of alchemy's visionary internal dramas".
He took a quick peek through the eyes of a low resolution weather satellite, saw the North American continent spread out below, the Terminator sweeping through the West, most of the plains clouded over.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from True Names
More Ideas
and Technology by Vernor Vinge
Tech news articles related to True Names
Tech news articles related to works by Vernor Vinge
Portal-related
news articles:
- ARPANET Turns 30
- Sony Patents Ultrasound Brain Beam Matrix
- Japanese Researchers Jack Halfway Into The Matrix
- Sansar Social Virtual Reality Platform In 2017?
| Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA |
| Will Whales Be Our First Contact? |
| NYC/Dublin Portal Fails To Meet 'Guardian Of Forever' Standards |
| Holobox? Who Doesn't Want A Home Hologram? |
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
