E-Business
Issue No. 14 - December/January 2004
Reality — Really?
by David Twiss
I know why you are here . . .
I know what you’ve been doing . . .
You are looking for an answer . . .
It is the question that brought you here . . .
You know the question . . .
Film buffs may recognise the lines above from The Matrix. A film of two realities: a virtual reality and a true reality.
The origin of the cyberpunk sub—genre of stories like The Matrix, Blade Runner and others is widely attributed to the science fiction novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson (1984). However I suggest that honour is more accurately attributed to The Joy Makers, by James Gunn (1961).
In The Joy Makers, the population of the earth is offered and progressively takes—up the option of living out their lives in a virtual reality of just happiness, pleasure and fun.
Not surprisingly, in his 1961 book, James Gunn is somewhat short on the detail of just how this virtual reality is provided, as in 1961 computers were at a very early stage of their evolution.
Consider for a moment that in 1961:
- the world’s first commercial integrated circuit was produced by Fairchild Semi—Conductor. (Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore were working at Fairchild, and would not leave to set up Intel for another seven years.)
- DEC offered the PDP—1 computer for sale.
- Spacewar, the first interactive computer video game was conceived.
- Taiwan installed its first computer, an IBM—650.
- A researcher at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) developed the first effective time—sharing system for the IBM 7090/94 computer. Prior to this, only one user could run one job on the computer at a time.
- Ross Perot was getting ready to found EDS, and Teletype were getting ready to release the model 33 keyboard and punch tape terminal.
It is all the more remarkable, then, that someone should conceive and write of a future where computer generated VR (virtual reality) was indistinguishable from true reality.
VR t...
