
There is a certain mythology surrounding William Gibson. According to legend, Neuromancer, his debut novel and the one in which he popularised the word “cyberspace” (a word he had previously coined), was written entirely on a typewriter. Later, when he bought his first Apple Macintosh, rumour has it that he was so alarmed by the whirring sound of the CPU that he called technical support and reported it broken. Half a lifetime ago, when I was studying the theory of information systems in first year uni, I first heard the idea (which will be familiar to sci-fi nerds of all stripes) that his greatest weakness was also the key to his strength: because he wasn’t bound by “facts” or “knowledge” about what computers could actually do, he was free to imagine what they might one day be capable of doing. Continue reading The Peripheral