visiscreen n.

= viewscreen n.

  • 1932 ‘A. Gilmore’ Affair of the Brains in Astounding Stories Mar. 318/2 page image Harry Bates D. W. Hall bibliography

    [He] found him abstractedly smoothing his bangs of hair, pacing the length of the control cabin, glancing, plainly worried, at the visi-screen. [Ibid. 319/1] Occasionally his rolling brown eyes sought the gray ones of the Hawk, only to return as by a magnet to the visi-screen, whose five adjoining squares mirrored the whole sweep of space around them.

  • 1932 E. K. Sloat Loot of the Void in Astounding Stories 8/2 page image Edwin K. Sloat bibliography

    Penrun sprang to the small visi[-]screen beside the board and snapped on the current. Swiftly he revolved the periscope aerial. There appeared on the screen the hull of a long, rakish, cigar-shaped craft.

  • 1937 A. L. Zagat Cavern of Shining Pool in Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct. 70/2 page image Arthur Leo Zagat bibliography

    I saw, in the visi-screen, the blackness of space, the wide-spread panoply of stars infinite in distance and number that I had thought never to set my eyes upon again, and the ominous shimmer of the ether eddy, straight ahead.

  • 1938 ‘J. Benyon’ Sleepers of Mars in Tales of Wonder (#2) 23/2 page image John Wyndham bibliography

    Gordonov went back to his occupation of watching the repair work through the visi-screen.

  • 1941 T. Sturgeon Completely Automatic in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 93/1 page image Theodore Sturgeon bibliography

    I went over to what looked to me more like a visiscreen than anything else in the place. There was a switch beside it. I threw it. Nothing happened. ‘Where’s the receiver and transmitter?’ I growled.

  • 1951 D. V. Swain Cry Chaos! in Imagination Sept. 60/1 page image Dwight V. Swain bibliography

    The exploding flame of pronic [sic; in 1953 ed. ‘protonic’] blasts erupted across the short-range visiscreen’s whole viewer.

  • 1966 J. DeCles The Picture Window in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Oct. 88/2 page image Jon DeCles bibliography

    Carter went to the visiscreen and called the Public Archives.

  • 1979 D. Adams Hitch Hiker’s Guide to Galaxy 79 Douglas Adams bibliography

    She sighed and punched up a star map on the visiscreen so she could make it simple for him, whatever his reasons for wanting it to be that way.

  • 1983 H. B. Piper Uller Uprising 74 H. Beam Piper bibliography

    ‘Stick around, sergeant… I'll want you to take over when I'm through.’ He sat down in front of the combination visiscreen and pickup.

  • 2003 M. Swanwick Legions in Time in Asimov’s Science Fiction Apr. 86 Michael Swanwick bibliography

    Then everyone was on his or her feet, all facing the visi-screen, all raising clenched fists in response to the salute, and all chanting as one, ‘We are nothing! The Rationality is all!’

Research requirements

antedating 1932
Earliest cite

"Anthony Gilmore", in Astounding Stories
Research History
Katrina Campbell submitted a cite for the form "visi-screen" from a reprint of John Beynon's (i.e. John Wyndham's) "Sleepers of Mars"; Mike Christie located the cite in the 1938 first magazine appearance.
Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from Douglas Adams' "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1979 first edition.
Mike Christie submitted a 1953 cite from Dwight Swain's "Cry Chaos!" in Authentic Science Fiction; Jesse Sheidlower verified it in its original appearance in the September 1951 Imagination.
Jeff Prucher submitted a cite from a reprint of Theodore Sturgeon's "Completely Automatic"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1941 first magazine appearance.
Douglas Winston submitted a 1966 cite from Jon DeCles' "The Picture Window".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 1983 reprint of H. Beam Piper's 1952 "Uller Uprising".
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 2003 cite from Michael Swanwick's "Legions in Time".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1937 cite from Arthur Leo Zagat's "The Cavern of the Shining Pool"
Fred Galvin submitted cites for "visi-screen" from the Project Gutenberg ebook of "the Affair of the Brains" by Anthony Gilmore [pseudonym of Harry Bates (Hiram Gilmore Bates, III) and Desmond W. Hall]: he subsequently verified this in its first print publication (Astounding Stories, March 1932).
Fred Galvin submitted a cite for "visi-screen" from the Project Gutenberg ebook of "Loot of the Void" by Edwin K. Sloat; Jesse Sheidlower verified this in the first print publication (Astounding Stories, September 1932). While the word "visi-screen" is indeed hyphenated in the text (where it only appears once), it is a line-break hyphen, so it is not possible to conclude whether it was meant to appear solid or hyphenated.

Last modified 2023-10-31 20:24:31
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.