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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Spider Robot | ||
| A mechanism in the form of a spider. |
As far as I know, the first use of the phrase "spider robot".
| In one of these cubbyholes under the bench a large black spider crouched motionless. That is, it looked like a spider and its glittering dark eyes seemed alive. Its body was as big as that of a chicken and its inch-thick legs would have straightened out to a full three feet in length apiece if they were not gracefully curved to support the huge body.
If it were a spider it was of no species of spiders known on Earth — or for that matter, any other place in the universe other than Jerry’s mind and workshop.
 (Spider Robot from 'The Mystery of Element 117' by Milton K. Smith) It was a robot shaped like a spider. Jerry had built it to act as a bodyguard, and put into it reflexes that would cause it to attack anything that entered the room. When he slept the robot’s reflexes acted and the spider stood guard. When he was awake he could control it verbally or by a pocket radio. The word “quiet” shut off its reflexes. After nearly loosing his life once when he fell asleep without turning on the spider’s reflexes, he had fixed it so that his breathing while asleep would activate its reflexes so it could protect him. He had built it in the shape of a giant spider because a man is more afraid of that shape than any other — especially if it is unbelieveably large and springing through the air with its glistening eyes and clashing mandibles. The sight of it would paralyze the most daring of marauders automatically, leaving them wide open. While Jerry slept the robot lurked under the workbench, its eyes taking in the whole room, its legs motionless until some sudden movement would cause them to spring. |
| Technovelgy from The Mystery of Element 117,
by Milton K. Smith. Published by Amazing Stories in 1949 Additional resources -
|
Here's the excerpt with the phrase "spider robot":
A look of frustrated rage entered Jerry’s eyes. One of the policemen was speaking.
“We shot the spider thing,” he was saying apologetically. “The elevator boy told us afterward it was a mechanical gadget of yours, but we thought it was alive at the time.
Compare to the metallic spider from The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells,
the scarab robot from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the spider robot guard from Mars-Tube (1941) by SD Gottesman,
the mechanical hound from Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury,
the metal insects from The Invincible (1954) by Stanislaw Lem,
the Sheem spider robot from The Witches of Karres (1966) by James Schmitz,
the spider tripod from Rendezvous With Rama (1972) by Arthur C. Clarke,
the spider cable device from The Web Between the Worlds (1979) by Charles Sheffield,
the spider robotic insects from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton and the recon spiders from Minority Report (Movie) (2002) by Steven Spielberg.
The door was open. Inside three men lay motionless on the floor. Atop one of them was the shattered remains of the spider robot.
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Tech news articles related to The Mystery of Element 117
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| How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots |
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'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
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'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
