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How Long Have YOU Wanted A Household Robot?
Science fiction fans can't wait for a robot who can help out around the house - even though they've been waiting for over a century!
Fifty years ago, Robert Heinlein's described a helpful home robot that he called "Flexible Frank" in his 1956 classic The Door into Summer:
Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? Answer: any work a human being does around a house. He didn't have to play cards, make love, eat or sleep, but he did have to clean up after the card game, cook, make beds, and tend babies - at least he had to keep track of a baby's breathing and call someone if it changes.
And fifty years before that, Elizabeth Bellamy described what she wanted in her 1899 story Ely's Automatic Housemaid:
It was clad in waterproof cloth, with a hood of the same to protect the head, and was shod with felt. The trunk contained the wheels and springs, and in the head was fixed the electric battery...
I proceeded, according to the pamphlet’s directions, to point the indicator to the word “Bed.” Next, as there were three beds to be made, I pushed in three of the five little red points surrounding the word. Then I set the “clock” connected with the indicator, for a thirty minutes’ job, thinking it might take about ten minutes to a bed.
(Read more about the Electric-Automatic Housemaid Robot)
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