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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Automatic Cultivators | ||
| Agricultural robots. |
| High in the deep blue of the afternoon sky rode a tiny speck of glistening metal, scarce visible in the glare of the bright sun. The workers on the machines below glanced up for a moment — four twenty-one it must be — then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators. Even this little break in the afternoon program was of interest in this dull monopoly of green. But they would soon be starting back to the plantation city. These endless fields of castor bean plants had to be cultivated, but with the great machines that did the work it required but a few dozen men to cultivate an entire county. Indeed, so vast was the area, that little helicopters were even now resting on the big cultivator, that they might fly back at the end of the day, leaving the machine where it was, ready to use in the morning. |
| Technovelgy from Piracy Preferred,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the conscious farm machines from The Hidden Colony (1935) by Otfrid von Hanstein, the robot farmer from The Turning Wheel (1954) by Philip K. Dick, the field minder from Who Can Replace A Man (1963) by Brian Aldiss, the Robomule from Bill the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison, the self-guided tractor from At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) by Larry Niven, the robot crab from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson and the agricultural robot pest controller from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton.
See also the robot lawn mower from City (1944) by Clifford Simak.
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
