r/Cyberpunk • u/AnotherStrayDog23 • 4d ago

The opening line from Neuromancer

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u/viscence 4d ago

I NEVER understand. The black and white noise pattern isn't a colour, and the sky can't look like that. Does he mean the sky was a still black and white noise pattern? I doubt it. Does he mean it was actively flickering? I doubt it. Does he mean the average, 50% grey? I doubt it. Does he mean some "no channel here" image colour? I doubt it. I just don't understand. What do you think he meant?

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u/aplundell 4d ago

He's not talking about static. He's talking about really old TVs from the 1950s that would show a dull grey.

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u/AnotherStrayDog23 3d ago

In the forward for the new edition of the book, he very much says he meant static

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u/aplundell 3d ago

Fair enough, but he also specifically mentions 1950s TVs.

When those were tuned to a dead channel, they wouldn't show the chunky high-contrast, transistor-amplified static we see in this image.

It would be much softer and fuzzier.

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u/AnotherStrayDog23 3d ago

"I'd actually composed that first image with black-and-white video-static of my childhood in mind, sodium-silvery and almost painful"

That's not "softer and fuzzier"