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"I prefer working by artificial light."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Instant Customized Clothing | ||
| A machine that produced a selected item of clothing, on the spot, based on customer demand. |
| He sat himself down in a sales cubicle and dialed the code number for kilts. He let the pictures of cloth designs flicker past his eyes while he let the persuasive voice of the catalog drone on until a pattern showed up which was distinctly unmilitary and not blue, whereupon he arrested the display and punched the combination for his size.
The plain blue uniform kilt he stuffed in the refuse hopper of the sales cubicle and left, nattily and somewhat flamboyantly attired.
 (Astounding cover, 1941) |
| Technovelgy from Methuselah's Children,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
There is an interesting correspondence between the functionality of this device, and the matter compilers shown elsewhere. It is not clear how the device functions; suffice it to say that Heinlein looked ahead to a point in time where the manufacture of customized, to-order clothing was practical.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Methuselah's Children
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and Technology by Robert Heinlein
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Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
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| Varda Space Industries Orbital Factories |
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'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
