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"There was a time when one old eccentric guy with a notebook could do something important to science. Now even the resources of a major university are often not enough."
- Jerry Pournelle
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| Robot Surgeon-Hand | ||
| A skilled surgical robot that attaches at the end of the surgeon's arm. |
V-Stephens was being held prisoner in a cube-like room in the psychotic ward. How to escape?
| From time to time V-Stephens examined his wristwatch and then turned his attention back to the object crawling up and down the sealed edges of the entrance-lock.
 ('War Veteran' by Philip K. Dick) The object moved slowly and cautiously. It had been exploring the lock for twenty-nine hours straight; it had traced down the power leads that kept the heavy plate fused in place... During the last hour it had cut its way throught the rexeroid surface to within an inch of the terminals. The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand, a self-contained robot of precision quality usually joined to his right wrist. It wasn't joined there now. He had detached it and sent it up the face of the cube to find a way out. The metal fingers clung precariously to the smooth dull surface, as the cutting-thumb laboriously dug its way in...
 ('War Veteran' by Philip K. Dick) The forefinger of the surgeon-hand reached the anode terminal and paused questioningly. All four fingers rose erect and waved like insect antennae. One by one they fitted themselves into the cut slot and probed for the nearby cathode lead. Abruptly there was a blinding flash... the hand dropped to the floor, its work done. V-Stephens ...crossed the cube to collect it. With the hand in place and acting as part of his own neuromuscular system again, V-Stephens gingerly grasped the lock... |
| Technovelgy from War Veteran,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by If in 1955 Additional resources -
|
Philip K. Dick was fascinated by the idea of robotic or technological replacement parts for humans.
the mechanical hand from Buck Rogers, 2430 AD (1929) by Philip Nowlan (w/D. Calkins),
microhands from Microhands (Микроруки) (1931) by Boris Zhitkov,
iron fingers from The Death's Head Meteor (1931) by Neil R. Jones,
robot hands from The Iron World (1937) by Otis Adelbert Kline,
waldoes from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein,
robotic hand from The Door Into Summer (1956) by Robert Heinlein,
interchangeable hands from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick,
surgical hand from Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) by Philip K. Dick and
office hand from The Human Blend (2010) by Alan Dean Foster.
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and Technology from War Veteran
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Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
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- Thing! Wednesday Robotic Hand (Robot Version)
- Robotic Hands Have More Than One Use
- Robot Hand Separate From Robot
- Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
| Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo |
| DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It |
| How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots |
| Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something |
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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.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
