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"I prefer working by artificial light."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Robot Crab | ||
| An automated gardener. |
Every passage from this award-winning novel has a sort of lyrical beauty, even when describing common objects.
| It was Sunday afternoon and he stood with Molly in a sort of courtyard. White boulders, a stand of green bamboo, black gravel raked into smooth waves. A gardener, a thing like a large metal crab, was tending the bamboo... The robot crab moved toward them, picking its way over the waves of gravel. Its bronze carapace might have been a thousand years old. When it was within a meter of her boots, it fired a burst of light, then froze for an instant, analyzing data obtained... The crab had altered course to avoid her, but she kicked it with a smooth precision, the silver boot-tip clanging on the silver carapace. The thing fell on its back, but the bronze limbs soon righted it. |
| Technovelgy from Neuromancer,
by William Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
The problem of enclosing a power source, mechanics for movement and functionality, sensors and a brain to interpret sensory input is a difficult one. One solution used is to have the robot pause to consider its data.
Compare to the automatic cultivators from Piracy Preferred (1930) by John W. Campbell, 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 and the agricultural robot pest controller from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton.
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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
Robot Crab-related
news articles:
- ThereminVision Sensor: Robot Proximity Detection
- AgBots: Agricultural Robots Take The Field
- Robot Crab: Crustacean Clockwork Automata
- Hexbug Robot Crab
- Robot Motion Planning 10K Times Faster
| No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix |
| Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional |
| DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers |
| Robot Snakes No Longer Stopped By Stairs |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
