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"The point sticks in your head: physics rules. Virtue does not triumph unless the physics allows it."
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I think this item is an accurate prediction of the Tablet PC, as well as the current use of PDAs and notebook-sized computers. As usual, Clarke gives us a great sense of how the artifact is used by the people of 2001.
It should be noted that the true size of this portable computer is roughly 17 x 13.5 inches, that being the size of traditional foolscap (or possibly 8.5 x 13.5 inches, which is also traditional usage, being the size of a foolscap sheet folded once). The "Foolscap" watermark was traditionally used to identify the size of the paper sheet.
Here is a look at the way Stanley Kubrick imagined the Newspad in his film @001: A Space Odyssey:
Bruce Sterling picks up this idea and uses it in Deep Eddy (1992):
The elderly European brightened swiftly. He flipped open a newspad, tapped through its menu, and began alertly scanning a German business zine. Compare to the blue optic plate from EM Forster's 1910 The Machine Stops. Comment/Join this discussion ( 6 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
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'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
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'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
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'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
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