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

Latest By
Category:


Armor
Artificial Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work

"It was my preferred entertainment when I was a kid, so when I set out to be a writer, it was perfectly natural that I should write the sort of stories that I used to enjoy reading."
- John Brunner

Repair Drone  
  Autonomous robots repair damage or sabotage.  

“The architects of Freeside went to great pains to conceal the fact that the interior of the spindle is arranged with the banal precision of furniture in a hotel room. In Straylight, the hull’s inner surface is overgrown with a desperate proliferation of structures, forms flowing, interlocking, rising toward a solid core of microcircuitry, our clan’s corporate heart, a cylinder of silicon wormholed with narrow maintenance tunnels, some no wider than a man’s hand. The bright crabs burrow there, the drones, alert for micromechanical decay or sabotage.”
Technovelgy from Neuromancer, by William Gibson.
Published by Phantasia Press in 1984
Additional resources -

Compare to the repair robots from The Well-Oiled Machine (1950) by H.B. Fyfe, Self-Maintaining Circuit Monitoring and Repair from Gramp and his Dog (1952) by Frank Quattrocchi, the self-repairing robot from Accidental Flight (1952) by W.F. Wallace, the blue collar robot from The Velvet Glove (1956) by Harry Harrison and the service drones from The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979) by James P. Hogan.

Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |

Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Neuromancer
  More Ideas and Technology by William Gibson
  Tech news articles related to Neuromancer
  Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson

Articles related to Engineering
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger

Want to Contribute an Item? It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add it here.

<Previous
Next>

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

 

 

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 Science Fiction 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

Science Fiction in the News

Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'

3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'

Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'

DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'

How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'

Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'

Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'

When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'

More SF in the News

More Beyond Technovelgy

Home | Glossary | Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.