Cyberspace Getting There From Here
©Copyright 1989 F. Randall Farmer

Randy was lead C64 programmer on the fabled ‘Habitat’ project for Lucasfilm Games. He has taken a hiatus from building Cyberspace while he works on a new telecommunications product at AMIX, a subsidiary of Autodesk. He can be reached via Usenet as randy@xanadu.com or through the Journal BBS.

	“Golden Vaporware” is a term I’ve heard Ted Nelson use to describe such exciting computer projects as Xanadu, Dynabook and Cyberspace. I understood the term to mean Really-Great-Stuff-That-People-Are-(Sort-Of)-Working-On-And-Never-Ship.  But now, it seems,  “The Age Of Golden Vaporware” has arrived. Ted’s Xanadu project is now well under way and should ship product in ’90.  There is a company called Dynabook Technologies that has released “step 2” of the “20 steps” to Alan Kay’s vision of the ultimate laptop.  And QuantumLink and Lucasfilm have prototyped Cyberspace with Habitat.

	These projects are likely to succeed not because they are exciting to us techie-geeks, but because they have solid commercial and technical foundations.  Here I will illustrate a path from current software and hardware technologies to the Cyberspace that many of us have dreamed of for almost 20 years.

What is Cyberspace anyway?

	“Cyberspace” is a fuzzily defined word that has been in the press a lot recently (at least in Silicon Valley).  Vernor Vinge first described a vision of what might now be called Cyberspace in his novella True Names. The hero of Vinges’s story connected to “The Other Plane” using EEG electrodes placed on the forehead. The Other Plane was a place where complicated software systems were represented by familiar objects.  The Max Headroom television show used similar representations in various episodes.  Other fictional treatments include William Gibson’s Neuromancer , which has been turned into a popular graphic adventure, and other “Cyberpunk” novels. Here the vision of Cyberspace is based around commercial and governmental network computer access, where “cowboys” and “wizards” break in and wreak fiscal havoc. In these works, Cyberspace is a metaphor for abstract concepts.

	Autodesk, maker of the best selling AutoCAD system, has thrown its hat into the Cyberspace ring where it joins VPL’s Jaron Lanier and NASA-AMES. All of these products share similar base technologies and assumptions two head-mounted TV monitors for stereo imaging, a powerful computer, and a 3D input device like VPL’s DataGlove. They are primarily single user systems, and, in the case of at least Autodesk’s product, probably aimed at CAD users who want to edit drawings in three dimensions. There are many other applications, but discussion is beyond the scope of this article. The key to all of these systems is enough computer power to do  double-buffered stereoscopic real-time graphics at a high frame rate (say 20-30 frames/second). This technology is expensive in the case of VPL’s “virtual reality” system (their special two user version) the price tag weighs in at $69,925. The “Eyephones” cost $9,400 and the glove $8,800. These companies envision Cyberspace as a new kind of user interface.

	To me, Cyberspace is a place, not just an interface or a metaphor. A place where people, regardless of location, hardware, or purpose can get together in a participatory experience to conduct business, socialize, or have a good game of SpaceCombat9.6.

	Why this vision instead of the others?  People.  Unlike the interactions with artificial personalities created for computer adventure games, Cyberspace interactions could create relationships that are “greater than the sum of their parts”.  Here the consequences of individual actions take on a greater significance because they affect the world of, and the personal belongings of the other participants.  Because Cyberspace will be so malleable,  each individual can “make a dent” and participate in its ongoing creation and adaptation.

	This is not speculation! During Habitat‘s beta test, several social institutions sprang up spontaneously There were marriages and divorces, a church (complete with a real-world Greek Orthodox minister), a loose guild of thieves, an elected sheriff (to combat the thieves), a  newspaper (with a rather eccentric editor), and before long two lawyers hung up their shingle to sort out claims.  And this was with only about 150 people! My vision encompasses tens of thousands of simultaneous participants.

(This next section can be deleted if space is a problem)
How can it work?
	There are several major problems facing a large-scale Cyberspace system Bandwidth, Graphic Resolution, User Interface Standards, Event Integrity, Data Communications Standards, and Computer Horsepower.

	Bandwidth is the most overrated problem. Everybody thinks you need to send megabytes of data every minute to each user in order to make Cyberspace work. This is simply not true. Habitat works at a mere 300 baud. The keys to keeping bandwidth down are distributed processing (having the local computer do most of the display and interface work), object oriented command messages, and avoiding communication intensive graphics primitives (such as those associated with NAPLPS, that slower-than-molasses protocol they use for Prodigy and other Videotex systems).

	Graphic Resolution, User Interface and Local Horsepower issues should all be lumped together.  To be viable over time, Cyberspace must be designed with the “to each according to his abilities” principle. If a C64 with NTSC TV and joystick-only interface encounters a 60 megahertz 486 user with Eyephones and DataGlove, the interaction should be filtered so that each user can have a satisfying experience (e.g the C64 user doesn’t see all the intricate detail the 486er has put into his attire, and everybody walks with exactly the same coarse animation, but they can still sit, chat, and play a nice game of Strattagema.)

	Event Integrity is a side effect of distributed processing. Simply put you can’t trust the home computer. Hackers have all the time in the world to crack the software and make it send messages it shouldn’t. This is akin to the long debated copy protection problem, but comes with its own unique solution The Host. Since the host is the final arbiter of all events, it should be programmed at a very high level to reject bad messages.

	Data Communications Standards are key to the future viability of Cyberspace. A protocol is required that is efficient and forward looking,  with hooks for future revisions (as bandwith increases) and data encryption. Anything that is going to be used for business will need to transmit its data securely for protection against espionage.  Also, the standard needs to address such issues as Email and  gateways to those entrenched text-only systems.  I want to read my Usenet mail printed on a sheet of paper in my Cyberhand!

	Since the host coordinates all activity for all users, Host Horsepower is by far the most critical issue. For the first few years of operations, Cyberspace will have a single centralized host consisting of several connected multi-processing computers.  In order to keep overhead to a minimum, bandwidth and database access will need to be tightly limited.  The communications protocol will need to be super efficient and messages must be kept tiny.  Eventually there will be several independent Cyberspaces, perhaps on LANs or a larger BBS. Of course, while you are walking around in your office Cyberspace, you might want to go to other Cyberspaces, so a distributed host model will need to be designed.  By not having a central host keep track of everything and everyone, this distributed model will actually decrease the load on each host. This will allow Cyberspace to take on a few interesting features 1) Each host can be a different kind of place, with different ‘rules’ (e.g. A role-playing Cyberhost would probably have monsters, combat rules -including character death- and a no-holds-barred policy about participant behavior whereas an office Cyberhost would have access protection and wouldn‘t allow personal combat of any type), 2) Increased capacity without loss of access, and 3) Faster growth.

(end of deletable portion)

When will it happen?

	Rather than pin a date on my Cyberverse, I will outline a possible implementation path, including all of the developments publicly announced to date.

Event Spring 1989 ”Habitat” A.K.A. “The Poor Man’s Cyberspace”
	Ship Low End Prototype
		Third person, 2D, Low resolution, Low bandwidth,
		multi-user Cyberspace with joystick/keyboard interface
		Purpose Entertainment

Event Fall? 1990 “CyberCad”
	Ship commercial CAD version of Cyberspace Interface
		Eyephones, DataGlove/DataSuit. First person, single-user
		3D graphics (wire frame on small computers).
		Purpose Commercial CAD
		
Event AT&T starts installing nationwide ISDN, promises installation
	by 2001 (this should drive bandwidth to 1.5gigabits/second!)
Event ‘DataGlove, the cheap version’ arrives.
Event 9600/19.2k baud modems <$100 dollars
Event A Cyberspace team defines the first Cyberspace Data and 	Communications Standards (an event they will regret later
	when this interim hack becomes the defacto standard)
Event 486/68040 50+ megahertz computers sell for <$1000 dollars.

Event (about 1995) “Cyberverse 1.0” (U.S.? Japan?)
	Ship first multi-purpose Cyberspace universe
		Eyephones optional, mouse or glove required
		Local data stored on high density media (CDROM?)
		9600baud minimum speed, LAN version available.
		(host still required)

Event Computers get 10X faster and 10X more memory/storage.
Ongoing event AT&T still installing ISDN
Event (about 2000) Japan completes ISDN installation, selling
	ISDN ‘modems’ cheap!
Event First ‘cracker’ group has successfully done measurable
	damage to the global Cyberverse.
	The back doors are all closed. Or are they?
Event After cursing the original Cyberdesigners for several years
	now, the Data and Comm standards are updated to support.
	multi- and distributed-host models. Massive testing required.
Event First suicide attributed, by the media, to a game played while
	in Cyberspace.
Event First combination television/phone/computer successfully 	mass marketed??

Event (about 2000) “Cyberverse 2.0”
	Ship distributed host version
		Supports latest user interface hardware (optionally).
		Now a host is not required.

Event (about 2010) AT&T finally completes ISDN. Wall size 	videophone reaching suburban markets (10-20 years late?)
Event Congress takes significant note of the Cyberverse, because
	trade unions (and other lobbies) note significant
	changes in the distribution of political power.
	First Cyberspace lobby arrives in Washington.
Event10-20% of Americans spend over 4 hours per day “on the
	Other Side”. First chapter of Mothers Against Cyberspace
	forms, claims ‘Junior’ never goes out to play…
	(We gotta think about this stuff too, ya know!)

Event (the Future) “Cyberverse 3.0” A.K.A. “The Big Payoff”
	Distribute version 3.0 via Cybersoft retail outlets in Cyberspace
		100,000+baud, allowing life-like personalizations
		EEG direct input? Hologram Video? Retinal Projection?
		Full Body digitizing? Forced feedback?
		Voice input/output? World access via remote-robots?

Farmer, you’re full of Cybercrud!

	Oh, yeah? A 386/CDROM version of Habitat will soon be released in Japan.  Other foreign companies are also interested in this technology, and some are talking about multi-machine support, standards, and the future.  My only fear is that the long-term nature of this project will cause American companies to shy away, and let yet another new technology be monopolized by other, more forward-looking nations.