Can't believe Gibson thought of all that stuff in 1984. Can't believe even just a throwaway thing like the simstim stuff gets used as novelty concepts in SF thirty years later and then he already took it fifty levels higher in the same book. Can't believe he thought Blade Runner was stealing his thunder.
@matilde While Gibson's fine, he didn't invent most of that stuff, it's in other SF and other cyberpunk writers before and current to him. Spider Robinson's "God is an Iron" (1979) is maybe the first modern wirehead/simstim, and even that's somewhat based on older ideas.
@mdhughes
The novelty with Gibson isn't technology. Asimov had Matrix-like learning in his novel "profession", so isolated concepts aren't the core of cyberpunk.
What makes cyberpunk is, IMO, a combination of capitalism and rapid technological advancement; technology that runs faster than legislation and which can be used and abused. Viruses, hackers, AIs... while authors like Asimov deal with ethical implications, Gibson shows us the legal holes that allow cyberpunk to take place.
@matilde
