Re-reading "Neuromancer" and I'm struck how the protagonist wanting to get out of debt by selling 3MB of RAM went from being laughably dated to seeming actually plausible within recent months

[roadskater@mastodon.social]

@goatrodeo @BoredomFestival "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" So confusing in 2026. What, it's completely black? Or in 2030, it's showing non-stop ads?

[clanger9@mastodon.online]

@BoredomFestival
In the early nineties I sold 8MB of 100ns DRAM chips to pay off a credit card debt.
So, yeah. Feels like we're back where we started.

[flun1tr4z3p4m@mas.to]

@BoredomFestival lately I’ve been constantly thinking about Neuromancer. Almost seems like it’s been used as a guide book by some, but not in the good way. Anyway, I just wish @GreatDismal was more into mastodon than twitter

[tacitus@masto.bike]

@BoredomFestival funny and sad

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@BoredomFestival this has happened before.

[ypsilenna@mastodon.green]

@roadskater @goatrodeo @BoredomFestival I imagined it would be gray with static

[simonzerafa@infosec.exchange]

@goatrodeo @BoredomFestival

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

#Neuromancer #OpenToInterpretation

[alexanderondu@troet.cafe]

@BoredomFestival

I just looked up that passage.
It says 3 MB of "hot" RAM from "the Hitachi".

Isn't "Hitachi" synonymous with a certain kind of toy for grown-ups these days?

Those surely have 3 MB of RAM nowadays. And it would be "hot" RAM for sure.

[wyatt_h_knott@vermont.masto.host]

@BoredomFestival All of that AI hallucinating itself as a god/artist nonsense starting to look a lot more realistic as well.

[sonikku@techhub.social]

@BoredomFestival @benroyce next generation of consoles will be a re-cased Dreamcast.

[hush404@mstdn.ca]

@BoredomFestival Longtime fan of CP.... starting to hate how real shit is getting (also, its always the terrible stuff and none of the cool stuff from the genre).

[fandasin@social.linux.pizza]

@simonzerafa

I've read it like 10-15 years ago.
I still remember this line.

Great book and great writer.

@goatrodeo @BoredomFestival

[chloeraccoon@mastodonapp.uk]

@alexanderondu @BoredomFestival @patterfloof Hitachi hadn't put their name on the magic wand for ages, and sold the design to another company a few years ago...

[tofugolem@mastodon.social]

@BoredomFestival
Later in the series, he describes AI-generated art that is nothing like the soulless drivel we actually got.

[westerninfidels@mefi.social]

@roadskater @goatrodeo @BoredomFestival I read a critic's take on one of Gibson's later books, in which the critic asserted that cyberpunk, like newspapers, is writing for the now, with no consideration for how it might age at all. I don't like the idea but I haven't been able to fault it, either.

[smitty@dice.camp]

@flun1tr4z3p4m @BoredomFestival @GreatDismal He’s been fairly active on Bluesky. Not Masto, I realize, but at least better than Twitter.

[simonzerafa@infosec.exchange]

@FandaSin @goatrodeo @BoredomFestival

Depends how you read that line as it's meaning have managed over time. Also the sky is blue!! 🫨

[fandasin@social.linux.pizza]

@simonzerafa

I'm old enough to know how "dead channel" looked like.
(I suppose) as it was meant by author back then.

@goatrodeo @BoredomFestival

[bymatthewporter@mastodon.social]

@hush404 @BoredomFestival

It’s profoundly unfair that in the 80s we didn’t get 1940s space opera coming true, but in the 2020s we get 1980s cyberpunk dystopia.

[imprinted@mastodon.uno]

@alexanderondu
@BoredomFestival
Hitachi at some point in the '90s was making computers (MSX, laptop RISC, PCs) along with other Japanese tech company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
https://www.computer-specifications.com/specifications/Hitachi-C90D-Specs.html
https://www.openpa.net/pa-risc_processor_other.html#pa50

So maybe Gibson was using one of these as reference.