He was inventing a lot of technology that didn't exist back then. I think not understanding computers was a strength of his, not a weakness. Someone more up on

He was inventing a lot of technology that didn't exist back then. I think not understanding computers was a strength of his, not a weakness. Someone more up on how they worked would never have come up with cyberspace, or with Wintermute. He made the usual "artificial intelligence tries to take over the world and exterminate humans" sound really trite. I read an interview with Gibson way back in the 80s that was very telling. He had never touched a computer when he wrote Neuromancer. He wrote it on a mechanical typewriter, because word processors weren't even a thing then. With the money he made from the novel, he felt as a science fiction writer, he should own a computer. So he went and bought an Apple II, state of the art at the time. He took it home and turned it on, and it made whirring, grinding noises, which freaked him out. He had no idea computers should be anything but silent! He opened the case and looked at the disc drive... a Victorian clockwork mechanism of gears, belts, levers, and pulleys. That's like the most Gibson thing ever.