| From: | losthalo brucekitty@*****.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Gibson and Matrix Runs |
| Date: | Wed, 2 Aug 2000 08:27:41 -0700 (PDT) |
rules of late, I decided to go take a look at my battered copy of
Neuromancer, to see what Gibson said about the subject. I used to
agree with people who said Gibson's writing showed he knew little about
computers; and while I think that is true, especially given the other
novels after N-M, something else stood out. Remember the run on the
Sense/Net building's systems? Case spent nine days casing that system
and writing the code he needed to pull that off. He was jacked in for
hours observing the traffic going in and out, what the defenses
appeared to be, etc. Not only does this show the usefulness of the V-R
style interface (at least in Gibson's world), namely that it helps
organize large amounts of info so a decker can get a handle on it, it
also helps keep interest, by letting the decker look at something less
boring than long strings of characters on a screen. Further, when the
run is going down, the interface lets Case observe many small changes
in the system (represented by visual cues) that are thus quicker to
react to than again, reading a long line of code.
Interesting, though, is the contrast to SR, in that most of the work is
done outside of the actual run, casing the joint and writing code for
cracking -that- site. Reaction speed isn't necessarily the only
benefit of the V-R, although that is part of it; a lot of what the V-R
does is organize huge amounts of data into patterns which are more
readily comprehended. I recall a few years ago seeing a program on TV
about a computer program used to visually organize the info that the
police had on various criminals and the contacts between them all, to
more easily comprehend the organized crime networks they were fighting.
It cut hours of sifting through documents to a moment gazing at a
screen, freeing time to draw conclusions from the info. SR -says- the
matrix and ASIST technology are used to do this, although as other
people have said, it rarely appears so from SR's examples. I'd like to
see more explanation of how computers and programs are actually -used-
in SR, rather than the bass-ackwards system designed for characters to
break into systems, and nevermind what any of this stuff does when no
one is breaking in... Gibson's characters seem able to sort through
vast amounts of information looking for one person, actions that in
SR's system would require enormous time to break into and access all
the files involved (although I suppose frames might take up some of the
slack there).
Thoughts?
Bruce
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