Re: Missed It By That Much

jdnicoll@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (James Nicoll) wrote in
news:funnlr$ame$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

> In article
> <614ca98c-2485-47b5-a8b9-611fb983add3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >, <ncwaite@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>...

>>Another Clarke prediction, this time from _The Lost Worlds of
>>2001_ . Once section features some-one receiving what can be
>>best described as an e-mail (text message delivered to a
>>terminal).  For some reason, however, he describes the message
>>automatically being printed out on paper as soon as it was
>>received (more like a telex, I guess) rather than being stored
>>and viewed on a monitor.  This is particularly jarring since the
>>person receiving the e-mail is on a space****p in orbit around
>>Mars, where he might find it difficult to get more paper should
>>he happen to run out. 
 
>      One of Poul Anderson's books (Don't recall the title: the
>      one 
> about an alien from Sigma Draconis dropping by) has something
> like the WWW that is also limited to printed output.

Multivac likewise used teletypes for I/O.  (Though the hand 
calculator in the _Foundation_ prologue had a display, IIRC.)  This 
may be related to the way that speaking trailed AI tech in Asimov's 
robot stories, or the way Mike's CGI abilities are treated as even 
more impressive than his intelligence in _The Moon is a Harsh 
Mistress_.  While generating a/v on the fly wasn't a completely 
unheard of idea, it seems to have been seen as pu****ng Clarke's Law, 
well beyond mere interstellar star****ps or machine sapience.

Mike

-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
mschiffe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]