History Main / BrainComputerInterface

* Lain gets a direct neural interface in ''SerialExperimentsLain'': she plugs herself to her Navi by sticking electrodes on her body and plugging them into the USB ports.

* In ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'', the Eva units are controlled with a direct neural interface with their pilots, via the LCL and the A10 nerve clips (those joysticks are just for fine manipulation and weapons control which are properly not even necessary with a high enough sync-rate). Side effects may include [[{{Synchronization}} sympathetic pain and injuries in direct proportion to the synchro-rate]], the Evas going into sudden [[UnstoppableRage unstoppable rampages]], being a helplessly immobile and vulnerable sitting duck at very low synchro-rates, or total [[MemeticMutation tangification]] due to a ''very high'' synchro-rate. Reasons #527, 528, and 529 why it sucks to be an Eva pilot.

[[AC: Comic Books]]

[[AC: Film]]

[[AC: Literature]]

* ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' has these on the bug fighters and other alien craft. Ax makes a comment about human computers being so primitive they don't have a decent psychic link.

[[AC: Live Action TV]]

* In ''{{Andromeda}}'', Seamus Harper had a dataport in the side of his neck, which allowed him to plug into, and interface with computer systems.

[[AC: Tabletop Games]]

[[AC: Video Games]]

[[AC: Western Animation]]
* In ''MegasXLR'', Coop meets a future version of himself, and their future Kiva is hooked up to a machine through her brain.

* In the ''{{Voyager}}'' finale, Janeway returns from decades in the future to change the present, and she is implanted with a standard issue neural computer interface from the future.

* Required for [[SapientCetaceans neo-fins]] to use tools in the ''{{Uplift}}'' series, usually linked to a harness with a robotic arm.

* ''{{Shadowrun}}'' and nearly every work of CyberPunk has the datajack, a port or wire usually somewhere on the side of the head to hook up to a computer. A cyberpunk character who can't "jack in" with a port in their head is not trying hard enough.

* Pretty much the entire point of the {{Half Life}} 2 mod Dystopia. The players can jack into a 3D interpretation of a computer by mentally connecting to the computer through the cyberdeck in their heads. Of course, since they are putting their own minds inside the machine, they leave their real bodies vulnerable to attack.
* In {{EVE Online}}, players fly their ships by being inside a pod full of goo with a neural interface which connects to the ship's systems and can easily be transferred between ships as well as ejected in the case of the ship's destruction (and if it is destroyed, a neural scan allows the player's mind to be transferred to a clone maintained at a station to cheat death). The interface allows a single person to control all of the ship's systems on any ship from a shuttle to a 20km long titan, with much faster reactions and better control than a human crew manually controlling it could have (NPC ships are controlled by crews, and with the exception of CONCORD, are relatively weak).

* In ''GhostInTheShell'', a number of characters, including the Major, have ports implanted onto their bodies, typically at the back of the lower neck / upper shoulders that allow a direct connection between the brain and virtual reality. In the ''Stand Alone Complex'' series, we get a glimpse of what the internet looks like from within.

* Dynamo Joe had Data Com One, a paraplegic whose brain was linked to a military computer, making him a brilliant strategist.

* In ''StrangeDays'' virtual reality is someone else's reality. Using computerized Walkmen that record and play back thoughts and sensations, voyeurs relive parts of other people's lives--sometimes with deadly results. The walkmen operate using a brain computer interface.

* There was a Dean Koontz novel were people were mutating in bizarre ways. A 'popular' mutation was growing a computer interface, and when one such person died the computer freaked out and started 'screaming' about missing the rest of it. Another person melded with his car in a similar way.
* In the later ''{{Foundation}}'' books by IsaacAsimov some ships are flown by neural interface.
* ''HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. Infinidum Enterprise's Computer Terminals in the Hitchhiker's Guide buildings. There is a quote explaining how they're not a 'clunky typewrighter in front of a television set', but in fact a brain-computer interface thing.

* LookAroundYou (series 1) parodies this with EBEs, Electronic Brain Enhancements, chips that students can plug into their heads to help with their revision but which they can become addicted to.

* R. Talsorian Games' Cyberpunk. Interface Plugs allow the person implanted with them to connect to and control cyberdecks.

* In ''MegasXLR'', Coop meets a future version of himself, and their future Kiva is hooked up to a machine through her brain.

* ''SystemShock''. It actually makes sense from the player's perspective, but that's where it falls apart: ''you'' have a mouse. Your hacker ''character'' doesn't. How does all that information get transmitted to the character? How does he turn on and turn off his various upgrades? And most important of all, how does the multi-view tactical display work? Does he just get all schizophrenic or what?

* In ''RedDwarf'', in a TV episode and expanded for the novelisation, the computer game "Better Than Life" works on this principle - terminally addictive total virtual reality

* In ''{{Exosquad}}'', the [[MiniMecha E-frame]] steering is twofold: the ground movement (walking) is synchronized with the pilot's leg movement, but aiming and flying are controlled via "cyberjacks" connecting directly to the pilot's brain via a socket at the back of his neck.

* Such interfaces are noted in passing in ''AFireUponTheDeep''. They don't work very well below the High Beyond, but their users still don't like taking them off.

* Present in ''BattleTech''. Enhanced Imaging, a Clan invention, is an implant which basically allows the pilot to directly control the [[HumongousMecha BattleMech]] with their mind, rather than with the standard joysticks and neuro-helmet. Protomechs all use this, as they're too small to fit a cockpit. The device has a number of drawbacks, like crippling withdraw, and causing the pilot to go slowly insane.

* Kimiko Ross from [[{{DresdenCodak}} Dresden Codak]] has a jack in her upper back.
* {{xkcd}} shows us that [[http://www.xkcd.com/644/ some people]] are not going to wait for these interfaces to go mainstream.

* ''{{Literature//Animorphs}}'' has these on the bug fighters and other alien craft. Ax makes a comment about human computers being so primitive they don't have a decent psychic link.

* ''{{Series/Animorphs}}'' has these on the bug fighters and other alien craft. Ax makes a comment about human computers being so primitive they don't have a decent psychic link.

* Cylons in the new ''BattlestarGalactica'' have two for the price of one. They can plug in fiberoptic cable into their forearm to interface with computers (but they have to [[{{Squick}} make an incision first)]] and they can interface with their own ships by putting their hands in a stream of water called the "datastream". The latter might be either electrical or biochemical transmitters, it's unclear but it [[RuleOfCool sure looks cool!]] It helps that they're {{Artificial Human}}s.

* In ''Stargate SG-1,'' human-form replicators can interface with technology (particularly Earth computers) by sticking a body part, usually a hand, directly into the machine. Apparently this also works on humans, as the human-form replicators can literally get inside their victim's heads (though it is [[MindRape not exactly painless for the victim]]).

* In the {{Voyager}} finale, Janeway returns from decades in the future to change the present, and she is implanted with a standard issue neural computer interface from the future.

!!Examples

* The Dreamer consoles in ''TheLongestJourney''.

In many CyberPunk and occasionally other Sci-fi computers can be easily used without something like a keyboard or a mouse, rather characters simply think and the machine responds. Typically it requires an implant of some kind but sometimes it is possible with a headband or helmet.

Sub-trope of UnusualUserInterface

* In ''GhostInTheShell'', a number of characters, including the Major, have ports implanted onto their bodies, typically at the back of the lower neck / upper shoulders that allow a direct connection between the brain and virtual reality. In the Stand Alone Complex series, we get a glimpse of what the internet looks like from within.

* In ''MegasXLR'' coop meets a future version of himself and their future Kiva is hooked up to a machine through her brain.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=7kctOHnrvuM A monkey controls a robotic arm using a chip in his head]]