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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you dont make it again."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Automatic Ticket Machine | ||
| Get your ticket to Trantor automatically. |
I'm not sure when the first machines that dispensed tickets (like subway tickets) first originated. I don't think that machines that could read paper currency were common until the 1980's.
| And the voice that cut in on her was a thunderclap that iced the scream in
her throat into a voiceless slash. "Look, miss," it said, irritably, "are you using the ticket machine or are you just standing there?" It was the first she realized that she was standing in front of a ticket machine. You put a high denomination bill into the clipper which sank out of sight. You pressed the button below your destination and a ticket came out together with the correct change as determined by an electronic scanning device that never made a mistake. It was a very ordinary thing and there is no cause for anyone to stand before it for five minutes. Arcadia plunged a two-hundred credit into the clipper, and was suddenly aware of the button labeled "Trantor." Trantor, dead capital of the dead Empire the planet on which she was born. She pressed it in a dream. Nothing happened, except that the red letters flicked on and off, reading 172.18 172.18 172.18 It was the amount she was short. Another two-hundred credit. The ticket was spit out towards her. It came loose when she touched it, and the change tumbled out afterward. |
| Technovelgy from Second Foundation,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Doubleday in 1953 Additional resources -
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| Nuclear Rockets To Fly In Space! |
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'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'If you surf over a bump... If you surf over a pothole...'
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...'
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'...copy two of the original document no longer can be superimposed on copy one.'
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines.'
'I have transferred the ego of a dog to a synthetic dog brain in the skull case of a robot dog.'
