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"No one has ever produced a statement of fact that was technically true. The most accurate statements of science we have today are accurate to only 15 decimal places."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Tabletop Display | ||
| A display monitor built into a flat, horizontal table surface. |
This is a very early description of the idea of a table-top display. All of the other display descriptions are horizontal, following the idea of a projection movie screen.
| The women were standing by what appeared to be a large flat-topped table. One of them, taller and more majestic even than her sisters, evidently a person in authority, spoke a few words, another pressed a button. Immediately what appeared to be a concave rostrum rolled forward and I was asked to take a seat immediately in front of it. Two metal creatures busied themselves with levers and dials.
A large metal mirror set in the face of the flat topped table suddenly became thronged with reflected images — of houses, people, air-motors, trees and flowers, all very minute, but rapidly growing distinct and clearcut. At first I couldn’t understand the purpose of this mirror. Then suddenly it came to me: this place was undoubtedly a television and radio-broadcasting station. The area to be served with pictures and oral news was being visualized in the mirror. I watched the reflections intently. On an infinitely smaller scale I was seeing the surrounding country, not only of the East Bay but of the Peninsula across the Bay. Not until the pictures were perfectly clear, and a certain radius assured, did the tall majestic woman begin to question me. |
| Technovelgy from An Adventure in Time,
by Francis Flagg. Published by Science Wonder Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the chess board hologram from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from An Adventure in Time
More Ideas
and Technology by Francis Flagg
Tech news articles related to An Adventure in Time
Tech news articles related to works by Francis Flagg
Tabletop Display-related
news articles:
- Multi-Touch Illuminate Table
- MisTable Fog Display Like SeaQuest DSV
| Did Frank Herbert Predict E-Ink Displays? |
| I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display |
| Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large |
| iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen! |
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'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
