David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
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The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
This is without doubt the most awesome paragraph I have ever read in an SF story:
quote:
You know the logics setup. You got a logic in your house. It looks like a vision receiver used to, only it's got keys instead of dials and you punch the keys for what you wanna get. It's hooked in to the tank, which has the Carson Circuit all fixed up with relays. Say you punch "Station SNAFU" on your logic. Relays in the tank take over an' whatever vision-program SNAFU is telecastin' comes on your logic's screen. Or you punch "Sally Han****'s Phone" an' the screen blinks an' sputters an' you're hooked up with the logic in her house an' if somebody answers you got a vision-phone connection. But besides that, if you punch for the weather forecast or who won today's race at Hialeah or who was mistress of the White House durin' Garfield's administration or what is PDQ and R sellin' for today, that comes on the screen too. The relays in the tank do it. The tank is a big buildin' full of all the facts in creation an' all the recorded telecasts that ever was made—an' it's hooked in with all the other tanks all over the country—an' everything you wanna know or see or hear, you punch for it an' you get it. Very convenient. Also it does math for you, an' keeps books, an' acts as consultin' chemist, physicist, astronomer, an' tea-leaf reader, with a "Advice to the Lovelorn" thrown in.
This is from a short story A Logic Named Joe, by Murray Leinster (published under his real name of Will F. Jenkins.
Published in 1946.
I just find that... indescribably awesome.
---
"Gentlemen, we have not the slightest idea what this equation means, but we may be sure that it means something very important."
Benjamin Peirce
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11/5/2008, 10:23 pm
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David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
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Re: The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
quote:
Firlefanz wrote:
or maybe he came back in time.
It's the only possible explanation 
---
"Gentlemen, we have not the slightest idea what this equation means, but we may be sure that it means something very important."
Benjamin Peirce
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11/6/2008, 8:55 am
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Loud G
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Registered: 01-2005
Location: Maryland, USA
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Re: The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
quote:
David Meadows wrote:
quote:
...the screen blinks an' sputters ...
He had a vision of Windows! 
--- Reading: Mistborn
Writing: Eriadhin
"Life is like a book, except it takes longer to get to the climax."
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11/6/2008, 2:28 pm
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dragonlady
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Registered: 04-2003
Location: England
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Re: The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
Just goes to show you that there are few new ideas, just variations on old ones.
I read some Welsh mythology, recorded in the middle ages but probably taken from earlier oral traditional, which had what appeared to be a (magical) nuclear/neutrino bomb.
Basically this magical artefact went haywire and spewed death fumes over the Irish countryside, killing almost all the people and animals and destroying a lot of the plant life. It even caused part of a causeway to sink right into the sea.
---
"Why sometimes I've believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast" -- Red Queen, Lewis Carrol
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11/6/2008, 6:12 pm
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Reythia
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Registered: 11-2005
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Re: The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
Okay, I was about to tell you that you were crazy, Meadows (well, crazier), but the date made me pause. That's some pretty impressive dreaming, given that the ENIAC was still in production around then.
Though... I don't know. Maybe you still ARE crazy. I mean, to read a whole book/story in that annoying dialect... you'd HAVE to be somewhat crazy just to trudge through it all! 
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11/6/2008, 6:26 pm
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QS2
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Registered: 03-2006
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Re: The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
Oddly enough I think I might have read that one myself as well..., though I can't properly recall anymore. Still, it is pretty amazing. 
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11/7/2008, 10:53 am
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Corvus
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Registered: 12-2003
Posts: 293
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Re: The most awesome SF in the world... ever!
I have a book here by Leinster, Space Tug. Leinster may have shown prescience in that bit quoted above, but this book is horribly dated. I tried to read it and utterly failed. I guess even prescient authors can't be awesome all the time.
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11/7/2008, 12:59 pm
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