Neuromancer Questions Part 1

On first thought, reading this book in a writing class did not strike me as that unusual. After all, the book is an excellent example of a well-written novel. After getting through the first couple of chapters I understood exactly why we were reading Neuromancer by Willam Gibson. The book is chock full of terminology and issues relevent to the study of Digital Writing.

Some terms that are used in the book are commonplace today, although their meanings in the book are a littl different.

Cyberspace: a "consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts". the bodyless world of the future, p. 6 & 51
Ice: Intrusion countermeasures electronics, breaks into a system in cyberspace, p. 28
Go-to: doing a scan on someone??, p. 34 & 35
Matrix: a vast "consensual hallucination" p.5
Joe-boy: thugs, lackeys that hang around, p. 16
Simstim: Simstim deck, a 'meat toy' p. 55
Coffins: place near the port where some people sleep, very small and cramped with a computer in there, p. 8 & 9
Virus: a la Mole IX that messes up cyberspac, p. 82
Deck: object used to transport a person between cyberspace and "real world", used w/ trodes
Zaibatsu: company, government?, p. 50
Meat: a "real world" person
Microsoft: angular fragments of colored silicon mounted under oblong transparent bubbles on squares of white cardboard. p. 57
Artificial Intelligence: computer knowledge like Wintermute, p. 72 & 73
Subliminals: bad things that AI can do? p. 90

Viewing the impact that this novel has had on our vernacular, I would say that it is very prophetic. The visuals I have of the book are extremely close to those of The Matrix movie which only came out 7 years ago. Although I have not yet finished it, the book is extremely close to how I picture technology in the present and future.