Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!brucec%phoebus.phoebus.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS.
From: brucec%phoebus.phoebus.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS. (Bruce Cohen;;50-662;LP=A;)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Authors of cyberspacish Fiction
Message-ID: <7512@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 90 20:32:58 GMT
References: <1990Sep4.175934.282@dg-rtp.dg.com> <7468@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Tektronix Inc.
Lines: 67
Approved: hitl@hardy.u.washington.edu



In article <7468@milton.u.washington.edu> randy@xanadu.com (Randy Farmer -- A su
rvivor of the Lost Patrol) writes:
> 
> Yes, you missed one that IMHO is the best of all: True Names by Vernor
> Vinge (in his anthology: True Names and Other Dangers).
> 

I was begining to wonder if anyone else reading this newsgroup knew about
Vinge.  I mentioned him in a posting here a few weeks ago, and no one
commented, which usually means one of:
    1) *everyone* knows that, greenie!
    2) nobody knows and nobody cares ... go 'way
    3) my internet connection was accidentally plugged into the 8th
       dimension, so no one heard me
    :-)

> For a picture of an IMPLEMENTABLE cyberspace (you still have to wave your
> hands about the EEG interface though ;D) read this. Vinge DOES know
> something about computers and networks (where Gibson has often pointed
> out (bragged?) that he does not. His 'real' world is also much closer to
> ours, and much less distopian. Oh yeah! It's a good story too.
> 

Agreed.  Vinge knows what he's talking about, and it is a good story.
Also, the technology he describes has implications both to other
technologies and to the structure of society beyond what he describes in
the book.  This is usually a sign that the author has tried to build a
well-researched and self-consistent background for the story.  I don't
think that Gibson did either one of those things; his books are fun to read
for the adventure and the atmosphere, but they don't make me think, "That
makes sense.  But that must mean that ..."

> Lucasfilm's Habitat Projects were partially inspired by some of the ideas
> in True Names (most notably, reduced bandwidth and what we call 'surreal-time'
)
> There was nothing in Neromancer we could use. Nada. Vinge said: "Habitat *IS*
> The Other Plane with two execptions: #1) The EEG interface and #2) Distributed
> Hosts. But #1 is fantasy!". Morningstar and I are working on #2.
> 
> Please note, though I didn't like the Gibson books and don't feel they
> really help in understanding what a REAL WORKING cyberspace will be like, they
> ARE required reading for any cyberhacker (*IF* the stimulate the creative/
> critical brain cells!)
>

My problem with this concentration on Gibson is that he didn't have a very
good idea of what cyberspace WAS, but he stuck a label on it, and now
everyone wants to use the label for something or other, and then argue that
everyone else is misusing it.  Vinge didn't label, he described.  Maybe
what he described isn't the only thing we can do with VR (probably isn't),
but it's something concrete enough that we can try to specify and design an
implementation of it.

> 
> F. Randall Farmer
> Mother of Habitat
> randy@xanadu.com

Please tell me more about Habitat.  Are there papers you can cite?
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: USE THIS ADDRESS TO REPLY, REPLY-TO IN HEADER MAY BE BROKEN!
Bruce Cohen, Computer Research Lab        email: brucec@tekcrl.labs.tek.com
Tektronix Laboratories, Tektronix, Inc.                phone: (503)627-5241
M/S 50-662, P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, OR  97077