a keyboard at your fingertips!

 
Genndy Tartakovsky and his brilliant team behind the fantastic Samurai Jack, had their own take on a glove interface – if only it had been linked to a heads-up display, things may not gotten so chaotic – Cartoon Network (or possibly, Adult Swim)

Genndy Tartakovsky and his brilliant team behind the fantastic Samurai Jack, had their own take on a glove interface – if only it had been linked to a heads-up display, things may not gotten so chaotic – Cartoon Network (or possibly, Adult Swim)

GLOVE-GOGGLE INTERFACE


many, many moons ago (1993), i re-read [1] The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and, as you do, i began thinking about how a combat spacesuit would function – in particular, how someone would control the many systems needed to survive and fight while inside a spacesuit

and somehow i came up with this glove-goggle interface idea – i soon realised that the idea, while a little sci-fi, wasn’t so advanced that it couldn’t be put into use in the near future

so i took it to a firm of patent attorneys – they did a search which revealed next to nothing along the lines i was proposing – however they warned me that, as the concept wasn’t fully fleshed out, they couldn’t be sure that there weren’t patents already out there and that further work needed to be done … and more money would need to be spent

the interface as seen displayed on the goggles – here, a mechanic is about to inform the system whether or not a part needs to be replaced

however – as i had recently lost my business, my house and was in the process of paying of various secured creditors, i had no money to invest in the paper chase …

a month or so later, i did learn of project in Queensland, Australia where they were developing a computer interface for extreme environments – so i sent over a document (see attached PDF) to see if they were interested – unfortunately, as my concept relied on tech not existing at the time, they didn’t have much use for it [2]

and so, with more pressing needs to deal with, the glove-goggle interface got filed away along with my screenplays, spirit board designs and what not – only to be reminded of it now and then, when The Forever War resurfaces in my life

the last time this happened was in 2008 when Ridley Scott optioned the rights – he no longer has them [3]

[1] i’d read it as a teenager, but that version had been edited to fit the pages of Analog Magazine – the version i read in 1993 was the 1991 edition which (according to Wikipedia): “restored many expurgated sections, primarily dealing with the changes that befall human civilisation over the course of the protagonist’s life”

[2] i later learned that their “computer interface for extreme environments” was basically a box designed to keep out seawater, while the user was submerged and working on a laptop

[3] Wikipedia has a history of the novel’s screen rights detailed under the heading, Film … apparently this screenplay is a tough nut to crack – the Wikipedia entry is well worth a read – i found the “connection to Starship Troopers” particularly interesting and wondered if Paul Verhoeven ever read it – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War


comments? questions?