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Message no. 1
From: PCGOOD@******
Subject: ENCEPHALONS AND MULTITASKING
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 14:56:00 EDT
(This is my first time posting to anything so please forgive any mistakes)

First off, I think there was a small mistake in the description of
the encephalon. Stech says that the increase in intelligence only applies
to "certain Technical,Knowledge,and B/R Skills." Why would such a limited
device increase ReAction and Magical abilities? It would not, so I believe that
this phrase refers to the task pool ,not the Intelligence increse, just like
the task pool from the Cerebral Booster-2. This would mean that you can't use
an Encephalon to shoot two weapons at no penalty.
Now decking is a technical skill, but as I understand it, decking stops
the normal signals to your body from your brain and converts them to commands
in the Matrix, i.e. punching something activating an attack program. So the
reason that you can't multitask decking is that you can't multitask your body
(ever try to bend your right elbow and straightenit at the same time? Did you
succeed?) You could perhaps run more than one deck using some of the methods
suggested previously(multiple I/o spus and a memory buffer) but every persona
would have to do exactly the same thing, or you would have to split your
actions between the personas.

(P.S. I don't even know if that sig stuffis something one types or if it is
something one can tell ones computer to do automatically. I'm just a History
major with a computer major for a roommate.)
thanks for listening
Patrik
Message no. 2
From: Robert Hayden <rahayden@*****.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU>
Subject: Re: ENCEPHALONS AND MULTITASKING
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 22:49:05 CET
On Sat, 10 Oct 1992, PCGOOD%MIAVX1.bitnet@*****.nic.SURFnet.nl wrote:

>
> (This is my first time posting to anything so please forgive any mistakes
>
> First off, I think there was a small mistake in the description of
> the encephalon. Stech says that the increase in intelligence only applies
> to "certain Technical,Knowledge,and B/R Skills." Why would such a limited
> device increase ReAction and Magical abilities?

This is really not that limit a device. It is a complex expert system.
The INT increase for Technical, Knowledge and B/R Skills comes fromt he
fact that this expert system is very rapidly able to provide information
as to the task being performed and contains a great deal of information.
The Reaction adjustment is justified because if you are really really good
at something, you would react to that something faster than you would to
something you were unfamiliar with.


> It would not, so I believe that
> this phrase refers to the task pool ,not the Intelligence increse, just like
> the task pool from the Cerebral Booster-2. This would mean that you can't use
> an Encephalon to shoot two weapons at no penalty.

Why not? Remember, this is based on the inea that you can utilize an
Encephalon to multitask actions. What you are doing is saying "right arm
aim here and fire, left arm aim there and fire." But you are doing it so
very fast that the actions, for all intents anr purposes are occuring in
the same action.

> Now decking is a technical skill, but as I understand it, decking stops
> the normal signals to your body from your brain and converts them to commands
> in the Matrix, i.e. punching something activating an attack program. So the
> reason that you can't multitask decking is that you can't multitask your body
> (ever try to bend your right elbow and straightenit at the same time? Did you
> succeed?)

Sorry, decking has absolutely NOTHING to do with the body. If you really
wanted to, you could run the matrix in ASCII, but that becomes cumbersome,
so many people utilize a 3D simsense icon to perform the same actions.
The matrix is a computer generated illusion, and that is all. The
illusion is designed to make using the matrix easier. For many deckers,
they have specially designed icons that they are very ver very famialiar
with, and thus get bonuses to their operation.

With multitasking decking operations, we are talking about using more than
one deck, each deck running with its own persona system. With Deck1 you
could not perform 2 actions at once, but you could perform one with deck1
and one with deck2, for example.


> You could perhaps run more than one deck using some of the methods
> suggested previously(multiple I/o spus and a memory buffer) but every persona
> would have to do exactly the same thing, or you would have to split your
> actions between the personas.

That is what we are using the encephalon for. Under normal circumstance,
you can only perform one action at a time, but according to the
description of the encephalon, it allows you to multi-task your mind, so
we are exxtrapolating to idea of using multiple Datajacks (and thus
multiple decks).

The human mind already "multitasks" hundreds of operations all of the
time. It has you breathe in the background, you heart beats in the
background, and all of the other things that happen.

Ever try talking to someone on the telephone at the same time you are
typing on the computer? What you are doing is a form of "multi-tasking".
You spend a few moments congnizant of the fact you are typing, then a few
moments listening to the phone and talking back, then back to typing, then
back to the phone. If you are really good, the poor sucker on the phone
only knows you are typing by the fact that they can hear the clacking of
the keys in the background and you know everything that the conversation
was about.

Ok, next try watching two television shows at the same time. What you
will do is look at one for a little bit and then look at the other, sort
out which is which, remember, and then repeat.

We are doing the same thing with an encephalon and multi-decking, except
that the switching from one deck to the other occurs so fast that there
are no "holes". In addition, if you give deck one a command and then go
to deck two, by the time you give deck two a command and go back to deck
one, deck one is just finishing up the command you gave it. This cycle
repeats. As the level of the encephalon gets higher, the speed in which
it switches decks increases (hence it can handle more I/O ports).

Now, lets try the next one, rigging. In my "example" of the rigger using
an encephalon, I showed how he was driving, shooting and piloting a remote
drone all at the same time. Apply waht I talked about above and you can
see how that would be possible, hell, even easier as the speed in which a
physical something changes is much slower than the speed in which a matrix
somethign changes. Ever be driving down the road, and turn to kiss your
SO? you might take your concentrations off of driving for 10 or 15
seconds, yet you are confident that not much would change or require your
concentration.

Am I clear on that or have I confused everyone? I hope I'm not confused.
*thinks*.

In any case, it is important to think of each deck as a seperate entity.
you cannot give one entity two commands in one actions. But you can give
two entitys each one command by using an encephalon to hold your attention
on each entity just long enough to give you the information (which is
stored in the buffer we talked about).

For the street sam, each arm is it;s own entity. By routing information
from a targeting computer, each arm can operate independently. Now,
obviously their are restrictions due to the physical body (it can only
twist and turn so far and things like that), but you can get the idea.

This whole concept requires you to take a leap beyond your normal mode of
thinking.


>
> (P.S. I don't even know if that sig stuffis something one types or if it is
> something one can tell ones computer to do automatically. I'm just a History
> major with a computer major for a roommate.)
> thanks for listening
> Patrik


If you are on a UNIX system, make a file called .signature in your login
directory and it should be auto-appended to your messages. If you are on
VMS, the best thing to do is to make a file, call it whatever, and read it
in before you send the message.

That, or type your email address at the bottom of each of your messages.

In any case, comments from anyone?

Further Reading

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Thwap!