Slashdot Mirror
The Technology of Neuromancer After 25 Years
William Gibson's Neuromancer was first published 25 years ago. Dr_Ken writes with an excerpt from an article at MacWorld that delves into the current state of some of the technology that drives the book: "'Neuromancer is important because of its astounding predictive power. Gibson's core idea in the novel is the direct integration of man and computer, with all the possibilities (and horrors) that such a union entails. The book eventually sold more than 160 million copies, but bringing the book to popular attention took a long time and a lot of word-of-mouth. The sci-fi community, however, was acutely aware of the novel's importance when it came out: Neuromancer ran the table on sci-fi's big three awards in 1984, winning the Hugo Award, the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and the Nebula Award.'"
Gibson didn't have cell phones, but he did have something even more interesting:1 When Molly goes to inquire about the Panther Moderns for the Sense/Net run, her contact thumbs a new 'soft into his socket and discovers that she's got "a rider".
Essentially, Molly was wired and Case could sense everything she did while he was plugged into his deck at home. Sure, Gibson had pay phones, but he had some sort of wireless communications channel too for Molly and Case that's better than any cell phone to date.