Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"In 1977, it took about eight months for a slightly faster more refined mechanism to put punk in the window of Holt Renfrew. It's gotten faster ever since."
- William Gibson
 |
| Microsoft | ||
| A small piece of firmware inserted into the brain that provides data on a particular subject, or special features, for the user. |
One of the key concepts introduced in Neuromancer is the idea of a microsoft, a small piece of electronics that is inserted into a socket placed in your brain. In the novel, it is implied that this practice is new, edgy - kind of like multiple body piercings in the late 1990's.
| Her destination was one of the dubious software rental complexes that lined Memory Lane... The clientele were young, few of them out of their teens. They all seemed to have carbon sockets planted behind the left ear, but she didn't focus on them. The counters that fronted the booths displayed hundreds of slivers of microsoft, angular fragments of colored silicon mounted under oblong transparent bubbles on squares of white cardboard ... Behind [one] counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space, a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the socket behind his ear. "Larry, you in, man?" She positioned herself in front of him. The boy's eyes focused. He sat up in his chair and pried a bright magenta splinter from his socket with a dirty thumbnail. |
| From Neuromancer,
by William Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Throughout this novel, and the ones that followed, Gibson expands on this basic idea. Microsofts can have the following kinds of features:
For those who don't recall, Microsoft Corporation was not always a corporate giant; at the time the author wrote this book, Microsoft was one of the many small companies that made software for those newfangled microcomputers. Microsoft the company was started in the mid-1970's; the company name was registered in 1976 and went public in 1986.
Just a couple of years before this novel was written, most software for microcomputers came in a plastic bag with a disk and some photocopied instructions (if you were lucky).
Compare to chiphead, from Nanotime, by Bart Kosko.
So where did Gibson get the name?
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Neuromancer
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to Neuromancer
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
Microsoft-related
news articles:
- Chips In Your Head - Artificial Brain Prosthesis Under Development
- Brain Coprocessor Platform Needed
- Cyborg Rats Have Digital Brain Parts
- Neurological Engineering - Creating Silicon Substrates For Brain Replacement
- Military Implants To Boost Memory
| Three Clues To Limb Regeneration |
| Electric Head Patch Helps PTSD Patients |
| MEDi Robot Calms The Nervous Patient |
| One-Shot Gene Therapy Cure $665K |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'The old woman laid her wire-knitting aside and fixed them with the bug-eyed, opaque gape...'
'The scope was adjusted to generate... an image of the lower section of the book.'
'They should be Welton Fine-Grains, or they would be too bulky to ship...'
'He imagined thousands on thousands of faces peering into yards, into alleys...'
Rather than nudge them up, nudge them down.
