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"We [science fiction writers] always wanted to believe in "private sector" space -- hucksters make better characters than a government does."
- Larry Niven
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| Automatic Pilot | ||
| A device to control the movement of aircraft using computer components. |
Marketing is everything in this classic novel from the 1950's. Although Pohl certainly did not invent the automatic pilot, he is one of the first to use a non-mechanical method to make it work.
| A team of designers went to work on an automatic pilot. When it was done it worked pretty well. And weighed four and a half tons in spite of printed circuits and relays constructed under a microscope. |
| Technovelgy from The Space Merchants,
by Frederik Pohl (w/CM Kornbluth). Published by St. Martin's Press in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Elmer A. Sperry built the first automatic pilot for aircraft using gyroscopes in 1910.
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'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
