Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Moving Desks Not SciFi After All
One of my favorite examples of science fiction technovelgy are the metal desk cars from Golden Age author Don Wilcox's manic 1939 masterpiece Ben Gleed, King of Speed:
The eager King of Speed donned a brain stimulator, glanced at his assignments, mounted a car, sailed up the wall, and delved into the cases.
Charged with hope, he zipped from stack to stack...
(Read more about metal desk cars)
And now this, from the morning Twitters:
The research workers rode up and down among the walls of books and filing cabinets in little metal desk cars, like marbles chasing through an upright maze.
Over the years I've seen old pictures of the moving desks of the Central Social Institution of Prague, but I had no idea they were still in use. pic.twitter.com/d2wh9PtZLp
— Justin Joque (@jjoque) January 28, 2020
People often ask me to make definitive statements about who invented what idea, but it's really difficult to do. I had no idea these really existed.
Don Wilcox also wrote one of the very first stories about a Multi-Generation Space Voyage leaving from Earth.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/22/2020)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Work ")
Swedes Get 'Chipped' With Vaccine Passports
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...' - William Gibson, 1984.
Meetings To Be Recorded And Scored For Body Language
'Jedrik was reworking the simulation model of Broey which she carried in her head.'
Would You Get 'Chipped'? Michigan May Ban Employers
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...' - William Gibson, 1984.
Workplace Monitoring Hell, I Mean, Tool For Safe Distancing
'And here is the weirdest part -- I never see another employee the entire day.' - Marshall Brain, 2002.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.'
Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto
Blue collar bot.
Rogue AI Replicated Itself
'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'
HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots
'... all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
When AI Takes Its First Breath
Any suggestions?
Chinese Aircar Light And Airy, Not For Blade Runners
Daytime version.
The Morphing Wheel And The Smartwheel
'If you surf over a bump, the spokes contract to roll over it.'
Transporting Antimatter
'...drawing plans for the magnetic tongs and bed plates and relays.'
Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...'
I Wish This Plaudit Pin Was More Like A Wristpad
'Frank was cursing into his wristpad, switching between Arabic and English.'
World's Largest Teleoperated Arm
'...a pair so huge that Stevens could not conceive a use for it..'
Japan's AI Buddharoid Automonks
'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
