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CyberPort
v2.0 - ©1992 Jim Leftwich
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CyberPort
v3.0 - ©1992 Jim Leftwich
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CyberPort
v4.0 - ©2000 Jim Leftwich
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CyberPort
v4.0 - Desktop Screenshot - ©2000 Jim Leftwich
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Click the images above to see full-scale versions
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CyberPort Desktop 19" version 2.0 (The
following is the original text file that accompanied the CyberPort
image files on the Internet and on America Online Well Cybernauts, here it is, by popular demand. This is the revised full, 19" screen version of the Cyberport Desktop (reconfigured to work with System 7's tighter icon spacing. This was printed along with other examples of my work in the Jan. 13, 1992 issue of MacWEEK and generated a lot of calls for copies. In order to use this image of a CyberPort as the desktop background for your Macintosh, you'll need to use this PICT with ColorDesk, or any other similar utility that allows you to specify a PICT image as your desktop. I use the port window part of the illustration as the area where my internal disk icon opens up into. Hey, when you've got a monster screen, you can afford the real estate. Someday we will don our interaction-derms, jack into our decks, and fly out to the Great Virtual Datastructures, where we will spend our worktime floating around huge, complex information modules. The complexity will be beyond anyone's imagination. Virtual construction will take place on a scale that will dwarf all of the "real-world" construction that civilization has created heretofore. I want it now! The trouble is that I'm sitting in front of a 1990 model Mac IIfx deck, whose ability to jack into cyberspace is limited to on-line bulletin boards. My interaction-derm consists of a mouse and keyboard. So, I decided to create a Macintosh desktop where I could at least "see the promised land." It's static, but it's there. I created an 8-bit, mostly-grayscale PICT file to look like a really complex cyberspace port/Bladerunner-like desktop. The concept runs something along the lines of this: When you jack into your deck, you'll be in front of a control panel where you'll browse the various cyberspace environments before entering them. Sort of like a window onto cyberspace. Others out in cyberspace might see your personal cyberspace as a structure, with them on the other side of your window and you could control access to your personal cyberspace the way you control entry into your house, etc. |
To create this picture, I started with a screen dump of my desktop and went in on top of it to embellish it, spending incredible amounts of my spare time. I rendered the area on the right of the screen where inserted diskette icons appear to look as if diskettes come in and are "docked" in ports and data is carried from and to them via pipes, etc. In the middle of the desktop I've placed a rectangular "window/port" into a vast cyberspace vista - sorta like massive, multi-level data structures stretching to the horizon. There's a translucent rectalinear cube around some of the datastructures representing "ice", cyberpunk author William Gibson's concept of a cyberspace security barrier. I have my main disk window open up to fit over this cyberspace picture and within the frame, so that you only see the cyberspace when everything's closed down. The problem with system 7's tighter icon spacing has been fixed in this verison of CyberPort. This particular CyberPort (CyberPort v2.0 19") has been created for use with any of the Sony 19" monitors. If you wish to view it on a smaller monitor, you can use PhotoShop, SuperPaint 3.0, Studio8/32, PixelPaint, etc.. I've created another, smaller version specifically for use as a background PICT for 13" monitors. It's uploaded as a separate file (CyberPort v2.0 13"). If you have a 13" monitor, you may wish to download this version. I also use my nuclear waste receptacle icons (two of the icl8 resources included in the ResEdit file uploaded as Jim's Groovy icl8's), as they seem more appropriate to this desktop. I keep adding to this picture all the time, so it's liable to get really wild eventually. I'd also be interested in other cyberspace vistas that could be pasted into the port window for variety. Howzabout it, you new-edge cyberartists out there !?! We might as well entertain our imaginations while waiting for this stuff to come ar |
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©1992 Jim Leftwich
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The Original CyberPort File Archives (1990 - 1992): 13" CyberPort Desktop 16" CyberPort Desktop 19" CyberPort Desktop
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