Controlling Computers with Neural Signals; October 1996; Scientific American Magazine; by Lusted, Knapp; 6 Page(s)

In the classic science-fiction movie Forbidden Planet, space travelers from Earth land on a distant world, where they encounter the remnants of a technologically advanced civilization. Remarkably, the human visitors are able to communicate with one of the alien computers that is still functioning. Connected through glowing head probes, the men¿s thoughts and feelings are directly conveyed to the machine over a neural link.

Many similar examples of people having their minds coupled to computers have appeared in other works of fiction. As often depicted, a person simply thinks of a command, and the computer immediately responds--a scheme analogous to the computer voice recognition in use today. Thought recognition would be the ultimate computer interface, the machine acting as an extension of the human nervous system itself.