Gramophone, Film, Typewriter

Abstract

Optical fiber networks. Soon people will be connected to a communication channel which can be used for any kind of media for the first time in history or for the end of history. When films, music, phone calls, and texts are able to reach the individual household via optical fiber cables, the previously separate media of television, radio, telephone, and mail will become a single medium, standardized according to transmission frequency and bit format. Above all, the optoelectronic channel will be immunized against disturbances that might randomize the beautiful patterns of bits behind the images and sounds. Immunized, that is, against the bomb. For it is well known that nuclear explosions may send a high intensity electromagnetic pulse through traditional copper cables and cripple the connected computer network. The Pentagon is capable of truly far-sighted planning. Only the substitution of optical fibers for conducting cables can accommodate the enormous rates and volume of bits that are presupposed, produced, and celebrated by electronic warfare. Then all early warning systems, radars, missile bases, and army headquarters on the opposite coast, in Europe,' will finally be connected to computers, safe from an electromagnetic pulse and able to function when needed. And for the intervening period there is even the by-product of pleasure: people can switch to any medium for their entertainment. After all, optical fibers can transmit any imaginable message but the one that counts-the one about the bomb.