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
"A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."
- Theodore Sturgeon
 |
| Universal Dictionary | ||
| A machine that provided references to anything known. |
Whenever Mr. Kiku wanted to know something, he'd just check the universal dictionary terminal on his desk.
| The universal dictionary in the British Museum was not more knowledgeable than the one in the Under Secretary's office; its working parts occupied an entire building in another part of the Capital, and its staff of cyberneticists, semanticians and encyclopedists endlessly fed its hunger for facts. |
| From The Star Beast,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1954 Additional resources -
|
This entry gives a very clear picture of what a massive computer installation looked like in the 1950's; it was very large and required a large staff to keep it running. Here's an example of a mid-1950's computer - the IBM 704:
The IBM 704 was considered the world's first super-computer and the first machine to incorporate floating-point hardware. The 704 used magnetic core memory that was faster and more reliable than the magnetic drum storage found in the 701.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Star Beast
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to The Star Beast
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Universal Dictionary-related
news articles:
- Encyclopedia Googleactica - Google To Put All Human Knowledge Online
- WolframAlpha Is Not A Search Engine
| Vint Cerf's 'Digital Dark Age' Vs. George Orwell's |
| Data Mining Computers Detect Your Emotions |
| Lizard Squad, Nihilistic Technofetishists For Hire |
| CoBots - Collaborative Robots Ask Humans For Help |
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> |
|
|
|
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 Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'The robot drew his cab up before Eric's modest six-room bungalow.'
'Hello, Europa... Is this your robot I'm looking at, in sector 94?'
What other robots are strong enough to carry you? Do you want them to do so?
'I'm going to pump the air from this room... so that the interior will be like airless and pressure-less space.'
'Plates and cups ... slowly floated down to the floor and were not broken.'
