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"I'm strictly an ivory-tower person. I can explain things but I can't do things."
- Isaac Asimov

Production Prescription  
  A file that can be used to reproduce an object.  

Trion can finally include a record of ‘a production prescription’. Connected to it by radio waves, the automaton produces the object needed. Thus, even the most sophisticated whims of fancy can be satisfied: like those of daydreamers wishing they had ancient furniture or the most extraordinary clothing. After all, it is difficult to send to every part of the world the unimaginable diversity of goods which are only longed for occasionally.
Technovelgy from The Magellanic Cloud, by Stanislaw Lem.
Published by Not Known in 1955
Additional resources -

Compare to the idea behind the cosmic express from The Cosmic Express (1930) by Jack Williamson and the plastic constructor from Things Pass By (1945) by Murray Leinster. Also, the Biltong life-forms from Pay for the Printer (1956) by Philip K. Dick are able to "3D print" an object organically.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Magellanic Cloud
  More Ideas and Technology by Stanislaw Lem
  Tech news articles related to The Magellanic Cloud
  Tech news articles related to works by Stanislaw Lem

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