HEY NOW
This is indeed a problem with using the vernacular of the times, I am now stuck with using "PDA" instead of "phone" or "tablet" in the Old Man's War series. I can't retcon it, so it keeps showing up. It'll be used in the new book too.
This is indeed a problem with using the vernacular of the times, I am now stuck with using "PDA" instead of "phone" or "tablet" in the Old Man's War series. I can't retcon it, so it keeps showing up. It'll be used in the new book too.
Reposted from
Frank Patrick
Felt the same recently when reading a series of books from the mid-00s that kept referencing PDAs.
Comments
What's old is new! Kids these days seem to really be into the 90's. That's pretty cool.
The bad news;
Every time you mention a PDA in your book, I think of the Palm I owned that would go off writing on its own, like it was trying to digitize the Necronomicon without guidance.
I think of your PDA as something even better than a phone or tablet. I can imagine futuristic technology in them, as you don't really flesh out what they do, besides "everything".
[JOHN’S PAGER GOES OFF]
John: Shit, shit sorry there it’s off. Yeah baby. Go on. What were you saying?
"What the fuck is this horse shit?" John muttered.
#TemporalDrift
Similar for PDA; imagine an assistant tech that's meant for businesses, and becomes personal...
Until we have them implanted in our skulls just wired right into the nerve. I guess then they'll still beep, but only where we can hear them.
They were to be fair a big deal In their time!
What seems mistake ends up suggestive.
EyePal - High tech contact lenses
WristPal - Embedded computer with a holographic projector on wrists?
Context matters
I reckon do a McCaffery. HNO3->Agenothree, PDA->podas or something similar
This happens in game dev too.
(Not complaining, it was a masterpiece!)
Sometimes SF makes amazing, accidental, predictions of future tech and sometimes it doesn't.
I mean, Tolkien switched from "goblin" in The Hobbit to "orc" in LOTR, right?
It wasn't a Frank Herbert "no computers because we're scared" thing. It was "no computers because wtf even is that", IIRC.
He pointed out it's tough to go your CS department for help when you haven't yet established a CS department.
Eventually, someone smart put the bootstrap code into ROM, and the manufacturer sent someone out to remove the toggle switches.
I had to go look up what it meant. Foreign enough to me that I hadn't a clue.
* Attaches to the USB port;
* Repeats the USB port (...and provides an A port!); and
* Provides additional physical buttons beyond power/volume/Artificial Nitwit access.
You could theoretically hook up a keyboard if needed then...
I'd never heard of a wire recorder before and thought it was something Asimov had invented as future tech.
They were horrified.