Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIDE! HIDE! WITCH! 21 Although no one had thought of synthetic textiles as being more than remotely connected with the project, it was that laboratory which came up with the impulse-storing ribbon. Yet they were the most logical to ac- complish this. That field knows prob- ably more than any other how to tailor and alter molecules to suit their pur- pose. Sound had long been stored on plastic tape; light, too, in photographic plastic. Without a hitch, Hoskins of cyber- netics, began working in the synthetic textiles department, finding in its ability to polymerize and catalyze molecules the ideal opportunity for memory storage units. Again, the elimination of grossness became a major concern, and from the apertures there began to spew a thread, all but invisible, not more than a few mole- cules in breadth and thickness, with each molecule tailored to pick up and store its own burden of electrical impulse. Bossy began to take shape, and, oddly enough, the box took on a faint resemblance to a cow. Perhaps this was mainly due to the two eyestalks which sprouted out from near its upper surface, like horns topped with dragon- fly eye lenses. None of this poor human vision for their Bossy. The diaphragm for picking up sound on the front of the box was vaguely like the blaze on an animal’s face, the apertures for air entrance where scent and taste could be sampled were like nostrils. It was as if there was an uncon- scious determination to see that the thing remained Bossy. A stream cf specialized molecules poured past each sense receptor, picked up the electronic vibration, combined to make a thread, in the way that a motion-picture film picks up light and sound, so that when played back they coincide, and stored itself at the bottom of the case. They had not yet arrived at any point where a new basic principle needed to be found. Although, at this point, they had no more than a sup- erior sense-recording machine. The thread could be played back, but that was all. And no one worried about it. It was music, another unlikely de- partment, who gave the clue to the next step. A note struck on one key of the piano will, through the principle of harmonics, vibrate the strings at octaves above so that they also give off sound. Shouldn’t there be a vib- ronic code signal inherent in each sense stream, so that like things will activate harmonically with other like things? Wasn’t that how recognition took place through harmonically awakened association with like experi- ence in the past? It was. Outwardly, Bossy ceased to take shape. To codify every sound, every shape, every vibration translated into touch and feel and scent and taste, every degree of light and colour density was a monumental task—in terms of detail work, although its organization was not difficult. To translate these into electrical code impulses was diffi- cult. But here again, no new principle was needed. Here again, man had merely the task defining the world in terms of symbol—and symbol in terms of code impulse. Nor was it too difficult to again tailor the molecules to carry electrical current, which, theoretically, would keep these code impulses vibrating in harmonics with those passing the sense receptor apertures. And still it was no more than an impulse storage bank. Only in theory was a new impulse activating its coun- terpart in old impulses. They had no way of testing it in practice. And felt connicloooks.c© im