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"Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Vision Strip | ||
| A circular vision strip for robots. |
A strangely modern presentiment of machine vision.
| Tiny and black, a mass of hanging arms and legs, the thing went gliding down the slope of a hill. Steffens saw it clearly for a full second, saw the dull ball of its head tilt upward as the ship came over, and then the hill was past.
 (Robots from 'Orphans of the Void' by Michael Shaara) A band of clear, plastic like stuff ran round the head—it would be the eye, a band of eye that saw all ways. On the top of the head was a single round spot of the plastic, and the rest was black metal, joined, he realized, with fantastic perfection. The angle of sight was now almost perpendicular. He could see very little of the branching arms of the trunk, but what had been on the screen was enough. They were the most perfect robots he had ever seen. |
| Technovelgy from Orphans of the Void,
by Orville Shaara. Published by Galaxy in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Compare to this very early reference to Computer Vision (Artificial Eye) from The Metal Giants (1925) by Edmond Hamilton.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Orphans of the Void
More Ideas
and Technology by Orville Shaara
Tech news articles related to Orphans of the Void
Tech news articles related to works by Orville Shaara
Vision Strip-related
news articles:
- Prosthetic Vision Device ala Star Trek
| Robots Repair And Modify Themselves |
| Robot Janitors Get To Work |
| Robots Learn To Install Charged Batteries Into Themselves |
| Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons |
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Science Fiction
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'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...'
'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
