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"There was a time when one old eccentric guy with a notebook could do something important to science. Now even the resources of a major university are often not enough."
- Jerry Pournelle

Trode-Net  
   

In Gibson's novels, people often access computers directly, without using a keyboard or mouse (or any other input device). In this case, the connection is achieved by using a kind of webbing with electrodes embedded in it.

REMs still up, like he dreams all the time... the man on the structure was strapped down in a brand-new blue sleeping bag. What is, he -- whoever -- he's paying kid for this. There was a trode-net plastered across the guys forehead; a single black cable was lashed along the edge of the stretcher. Slick followed it up to the fat gray package that seemed to dominate the gear mounted on the superstructure. Simstim? Didn't look like it. Some kind of cyberspace rig? Gentry knew a lot about cyberspace, or any way he talked about it, but Slick couldn't remember anything by getting unconscious and just staying jacked in... people jacked in so they could hustle. Put the trodes on and they were out there, all the data in the world stacked up like one big neon city, so you can cruise around and have a grip on it, visually anyway, because if you didn't, it was too complicated, trying to find your way to a particular piece of data you needed. Iconics, Gentry called that.
From Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson.
Published by Bantam in 1988
Additional resources -

In real-world use of electrodes that communicate with your brain, the connection is a bit messier than just putting on your trode-net.

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  More Ideas and Technology from Mona Lisa Overdrive
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