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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge

Interchangeable Hands  
  Specialized manual extremities.  

From the ship stepped Palmer Eldritch.

...his right arm was artificial. Twenty years ago in a hunting accident on Callisto he had lost the original; this one was of course superior in that it provided a specialized variety of interchangeable hands. At the moment Eldritch made use of the five-finger humanoid manual extremity; except for its metallic shine it might have been organic.

Technovelgy from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Doubleday in 1965
Additional resources -

Compare to the specialized arms from Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

See also the mechanical hand from Buck Rogers, 2430 AD (1929) by Philip Nowlan (w/D. Calkins), microhands from Microhands (Микроруки) (1931) by Boris Zhitkov, iron fingers from The Death's Head Meteor (1931) by Neil R. Jones, robot hands from The Iron World (1937) by Otis Adelbert Kline, waldoes from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein, robot surgeon-hand from War Veteran (1955) by Philip K. Dick, robotic hand from The Door Into Summer (1956) by Robert Heinlein, surgical hand from Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) by Philip K. Dick and office hand from The Human Blend (2010) by Alan Dean Foster.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Interchangeable Hands-related news articles:
  - The bebionic3 Robotic Artificial Hand
  - The i-limb Ultra Revolution Prosthetic Hand

Articles related to Robotics
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto
HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano
Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots

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