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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein

Fluid Metal Letters  
  A smooth metal display able to display words.  

Vulcan 3 was aware of him. Across the vast impersonal face of metal an acknowledgment gleamed, a ribbon of fluid letters that appeared briefly and then vanished.
Technovelgy from Vulcan's Hammer, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Ace Books in 1956
Additional resources -

Compare to the metal foil advertisement from Ray Bradbury's 1951 story The Illustrated Man. I also thought of the view plate from Philip Frances Nowlan's 1928 story Armageddon: 2419 A.D., which itself recalls the earliest form of television, a rotating disk of metal.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Vulcan's Hammer
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Vulcan's Hammer
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Fluid Metal Letters-related news articles:
  - Amazing Video Shows Chameleon-Like Crystal Display

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