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"Writing about the future, I have a vested interest in there being a future for me to write about."
- John Brunner
 |
| Single Seat Scooter | ||
| A self-service monocycle. |
| At a stand beside the station Gersen selected a self-service cab -- a single seat scooter, gyroscopically balanced, with a transparent canopy. Two SVU in the slot gave him possesion for an hour. Stepping aboard, he drove north through the noisy streets of Sailmaker Beach. |
| Technovelgy from The Star King,
by Jack Vance. Published by Berkeley in 1964 Additional resources -
|
You might be interested in an even earlier sf gyroscopically balanced monocycle - the tumblebug from Robert Heinlein's 1940 novella The Roads Must Roll.
For a very cool design prototype version, see EMBRIO Embodies The Tumblebug; don't miss the real-life invention - the Eunicycle Single-Wheel Gyro-Stabilized Scooter.
Also, compare to the one-man car from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for this item.
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| Musk Idea Of Cars Talking To Each Other Predicted 70 Years Ago |
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
