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"...a lot of people find adventure on the Internet. That's their idea of being interactive. My idea of being interactive is going on out and doing it on the street."
- Harlan Ellison

Horsten Psychomat  
  Re-creates a mental scene for the viewer.  

Van Manderpootz pointed to the headpiece. "Put it on," he said, and I sat staring at the screen of the psychomat. I suppose everyone is familiar with the Horsten psychomat; it was as much a fad a few years ago as the ouija board a century back. Yet it isn't just a toy; sometimes, much as the ouija board, it's a real aid to memory. A maze of vague and colored shadows is caused to drift slowly across the screen, and one watches them, meanwhile visualizing whatever scene or circumstances he is trying to remember. He turns a knob that alters the arrangement of lights and shadows, and when, by chance, the design corresponds to his mental picture—presto! There is his scene re-created under his eyes. Of course his own mind adds the details. All the screen actually shows are these tinted blobs of light and shadow, but the thing can be amazingly real. I've seen occasions when I could have sworn the psychomat showed pictures almost as sharp and detailed as reality itself; the illusion is sometimes as startling as that.
Technovelgy from The Worlds of If, by Stanley G. Weinbaum.
Published by Wonder Stories in 1935
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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Worlds of If
  More Ideas and Technology by Stanley G. Weinbaum
  Tech news articles related to The Worlds of If
  Tech news articles related to works by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Horsten Psychomat-related news articles:
  - AI Enhances Images Your Brain Sees

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