Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!brandx.rutgers.edu!webber
From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: TRON is cyberpunk?
Message-ID: <379@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 23-Sep-87 08:16:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.379
Posted: Wed Sep 23 08:16:44 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 08:46:53 EDT
References: <1581@rayssd.RAY.COM>
Distribution: alt
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 23
Summary: reply

In article <1581@rayssd.RAY.COM>, gmp@rayssd.RAY.COM (Gregory M. Paris) writes:
> ...
> To start things off:  How can anyone possibly classify TRON as
> cyberpunk?  The whole story takes place in an imaginary world inside a
> computer.  Where does a "futuristic approach" et al come into play?

Perhaps you didn't catch Dillinger's desk?  Or the conversations he
had with the master control program?  Clearly the timeframe of the
movie was futuristic and hi-tech.

What makes you think that the interface Flynn achieved with ENCOM's
computer was ``imaginary'' in any sense except ``futuristic?'' Recall
that the machine did not disintegrate him, but rather digitized him.
The interface described seems at least as valid as say the one in True
Names or Count Zero.

> One may as well call Dr. Dolittle cyberpunk.

One might, but I wouldn't.  Dr. Dolittle may have been an early
version of The Uplift War, but I don't see it relating to computers
much.

----------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)