Posted on 07/04/2007 10:25:42 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Invention of the Personal Computer... 1977.
Publication of L. Neal Smith's first SF work, The Probability Broach... 1981
Time Magazine names the Personal Computer Person of the Year... January 3, 1983
Your original assertion: "L. Neil Smith predicted the internet a decade and a half before the public knew what a personal computer was".
That's false hyperbole, Dead. Admit it.
The fact is that the public KNEW before Smith published anything, what a personal computer was. It certainly knew before 1993.
No matter how much you dance, your dancing is not going to make your assertion true.
I have debated this case with you without ever insulting you... however, you take every opportunity to impugn me. I am done with you.
If you don’t mind, I would like to join your discussion of the Internet and prescience.
As you correctly demonstrate, there is a long list of literary works where the computer is featured prior to it’s physical reality.
But when it comes to the Internet and visionary works - William Gibson has no peer.
Let us not forget Mr. Gibson’s world of the early 1980’s.
DARPANet was still used primarily for military purposes, and most writers, (myself included) used typewriters
Yet he transported us to a different time - where one could be a console cowboy with his own personal cyberspace interface.
Prophesy or vision his strange dark future unfolds and finds us all here tonight.
$0.02
Nelson gave a talk at Google a few months ago - Transclusion: Fixing Electronic Literature
I am really not arguing with Dead Corpse that Science Fiction writers have not predicted many technological advances we appreciate today. They've actually done a remarkable job. . . but usually put their "outlandish" devices farther into the future than we actually develop them.
My main thesis is that the ubiquitous personal computer as a stand-alone, self-contained, processor + storage with integral terminal for input/output was something that was not truly predicted by Science Fiction. Science Fiction writers postulated small single user terminals that connected to a large computer shared with other users... but somehow failed to see that Personal Computers would become integral with modern life as they have.
This thesis has been the subject of several talks and papers that were presented by Science Fiction authors... noting that the future is always different that we can imagine.
Science Fiction of the 60's and early 70's usually had manual calculation of things like astrogation and orbital mechanics... or calculations by terminal connection to a ground based computer.
The personal computer is an artifact of the Space Race because of urgent the need to miniaturize electronic components to minimize the cost of lifting them into space. In this instance, development of new technology preceded the visionaries of SciFi. It was only in Science Fiction contemporary with the development of personal computers do we see the introduction of the personal computer in SciFi. Prior to that, Terminals accessing large computers were the norm.
Dead Corpse and I are actually pretty much in agreement... we just differ on some details... such as when the public was aware of personal computers.
Now, if he could just learn to debate without insulting the other debaters.
However, they really didn't start doing that until the development of the Personal Computer... It was only in the late '70s that writers such as Algis Budrys, Vernor Vinge, William Gibson, and, yes, L. Neil Smith, started writing about the possibilities of what could be done with these new, fun devices that had been invented just a year or so before and were becoming more and more available.
The serial single connection Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) of server based information and intercommunications were appearing and hinting at what could be done. Some enterprising BBS sysops got several phone lines and modems and arranged for more than one connection at a time to their servers. This resulted in chatting... and shared gaming. All done on personal microcomputers.
Precursors of the Internet were already appearing in 1978... including email and tech support from Infoplex which in 1980 added chat functions with a CB Simulator and evolved into Compuserve.
Noting the growing popularity of home computing, they started thinking about and incorporating many of these evolving technologies into their writing and extrapolating, looking for "What kind of things will we do in the future with these things besides play game, do word processing, and storing recipes?" Most of these writers had friends, if not themselves, who had experience with Arpanet and Usenet and their shared information databases and discussion boards. They started adding two and two and getting quite a bit more than four.
But all of this did not really start in SciFi until the Personal Computer was available.
Read an article from MIT's Technological Review that I just posted on FreeRepublic.
On Science Fiction - How it influences the imaginations of technologists.
“...the future is always different that we can imagine.”
Indeed
I will leave the nuances of the personal computer debate to those who feel the passion.
My only observation is that my mind is communicating with your mind on a fourth-diminsional intersection in cyberspace.
Prisoners are being executed in China and their organs sold for bargain basement prices to rich foreigners.
Attacks on the structure of the Internet are commonplace and, in some instances, possibly perpetrated by sovereign nations.
Corporate control of Internet portals, traffic and information has grown substantially.
And not a bit of this strange world is new or unique - for we were shown it in astonishing detail in 1984.
For most, predicting the future is a hit and miss affair - but for Mr. Gibson it was, apparently, a gift.
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