🚀 go-pugleaf

I have an invitation for net readers - create a metaphor for computing 
systems that goes beyond the desktop cliche.  Four years ago, Apple 
had something with the Macintosh desktop: a new way to think about 
computing.  Now, everyone is copying the desktop: Microsoft, IBM, 
AT&T.  Even the new NeXT machine provides little more than a 
desktop with some cute simulated depth.

Marshall McLuhan said that a new medium always began by 
imitating the old medium: cow paths were paved to make roads for 
the "horseless carriage", film began by putting a camera in front of a 
play, and finally, computer screens now look like a desktop.  What if 
we really let go into our new medium; what should a computer work 
space really look like?

William Gibson described a cyberspace where computer cowboys 
shared a:
 
"consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of 
legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught 
mathematical concepts ... A graphic representation of data 
abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human 
system.  Unthinkable complexity.  Lines of light ranged in the 
nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data.  Like 
city lights, receding ..."  (pg 51, Ace paperback edition of 
Neuromancer)

What does your cyberspace, or whatever you would call it, look like.  
I'm interested in suggestions that are practical and serious, in 
particular, suggestions constrained by current technology in screens, 
keyboards, mice, etc.  I'm also interested in suggestions that are 
fanciful and poetic. 
 
We get to create a medium from scratch - what should it look like.
Note: please mail your suggestions to me directly.  I will post a 
collection of the results.

Send suggestions to: 

	Internet: bonar@vax.cs.pittsburgh.edu

or, using normal mail:

	Jeffrey Bonar
	708 LRDC
	University of Pittsburgh
	Pittsburgh, PA  15260