Who Codes the Alphabet?
An email thread about language and multimedia between Matt Briggs and Jim Andrews MATT: The Text Rant comes from the opening paragraph of an essay that I’ll post to the Raven this month called, “Unbound Books” about what a throwback text is in the context of the electronic medium. I guess the only points I want to make are that 1) the computer is a four-dimensional, that is, it exists in time (like TV or film) and 2) that unlike TV or film it is a responsive medium, so it demands interactivity from the user. In fact the concept of “Dear Reader…” on the computer is sort of passé. Readers are no longer readers deciphering text but USERS interacting with a virtual environment. JIM: I’ve heard 1 and 2 before. MATT: I agree that my two points have been stated before–but I think these are big issues that really impact how computers will be used in the future. As input and output move away from the keyboard (i.e., VOX interface)… text will quickly become a less obvious and a secondary wa
