 |
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
"The immediate problem with our meat brains is that they have no back-up. We can lose the most precious information we have from one bump on the head or stroke. You want a mind system with back-up that can access other databases."
- Bart Kosko
|
 |
|
Fixing Machines |
|
|
Machines that fix machines. |
|
Well, this robot idear was like a lot of other idears — it had a catch in it. Folks began to wonder if they’d saved so much labor after all; seemed as though they was losin’ about as much as they was savin’, what with the time they had to spend just keeping all those tarnation machines fixed up and repaired.
They began to ask themselves, ‘What’s the use of having all these here labor-savin’ devices, when we got to be up half the night tinkering with ’em?’ “But pretty soon, up popped another smart-Aleck, and he says, says he, ‘Whither are we driftin’? The machines are gettin’ us down,’ he says. ‘Let’s build some machines which will fix all these here machines for us!’
“Then it was tallyho and alley oop and off went the whole passel of mankind, buildin’ machines that would fix all the robots and the other machines when they busted down. While they was at it — just so’s they wouldn’t get in too deep — they built the fixing machines so’s they could fix themselves when they busted down. You see, that saved ’em from building still more machines to fix the machines that was going to fix the machines that was Well, they wouldn’t ’a’ been an end to it, otherwise..."

(Fixing Machines crash in "Frankenstein - Unlimited" by H.A. Highstone)
"...they was so dummed many machines cavortin’ and whizzin’ around in the streets and through the air that they was forever colliding with one another. A man’s life wasn’t safe. Here’d come a machine goin’ up to Canada, maybe, to bring back pine needles for a Ladies’ Aid pageant, and right over St. Louis or somewhere, it’d get in the way of another machine runnin’ an errand. Bein’ machines, of course, they didn’t have any sense ; they just took the shortest path no matter what happened. |
Technovelgy from Frankenstein - Unlimited,
by H.A. Highstone.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1936
Additional resources -
|
Compare to the repair robots from The Well-Oiled Machine (1950) by H.B. Fyfe.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Frankenstein - Unlimited
More Ideas
and Technology by H.A. Highstone
Tech news articles related to Frankenstein - Unlimited
Tech news articles related to works by H.A. Highstone
Articles related to Robotics
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.
|
 |
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
More SF in the
News
More Beyond Technovelgy
|
 |