Quote:
This Computer Originated World (or "COW"), was played out from a metal box containing slots that held a dozen or so vertical cards of microchips (similar to what you might see inside a modern-day PC). The lettering and the blue sphere were held as a static image on two of the cards. A static all-gold sphere is also stored. Most of the chips contain the 20 000 pixels of map data pre-rendered as frames of animation. The processor would then show the blue sphere and use the map data to decide for each pixel whether to leave it as the sea or plot a pixel from the golden sphere for the land or simply plot a black pixel to represent the land on the other side of the world. Each complete revolution took 12 seconds.