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"The best fuzzy rules, the best knowledge, deal with the turning points of the system. If a race-car driver teaches you how to drive, you don't need him to show you how to drive on the straightaway. It's how he handles the curves that matters."
- Bart Kosko
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| Exoskeleton (Medical) | ||
| Specially designed for Thins, eight-foot tall microgravity humans. |
In the novel, human beings who developed in microgravity environments were called "Thins." Whenever a Thin visited the home planet (Earth), special equipment was needed.
First use of the term "exoskeleton", as far as I know.
| They were looking ... at a handsome, shapely, dramatic-featured man, eight feet eight inches tall and massing 147 pounds with and ninety-seven pounds without his exoskeleton. Except for relaxed tiny bulges of muscle in forearms and calves (latter to work lengthy toes, useful in gripping), this man was composed of skin, bones, ligaments, fasciae, narrow arteries and veins, nerves, small-size assorted inner organs, ghost muscles, and a big-domed skull with two lumps of jaw muscle. He was wearing a skintight black suit that left bare only his sunken-cheeked, deep-eyes, beautiful tragic face and big, heavy-tendoned hands.
This truly magnificent, romantically handsome, rather lean man was standing on two corrugated-soled titanium footplates. From the outer edge of each rose a narrow titanium T-beam that followed the line of his leg, with a joint (locked now) at the knee, up to another joint with a titanium pelvic girdle and shallow belly support. From the back of this girdle a T-spine rose to support a shoulder yoke and rib cage, all of the same metal. The rib cage was artistically slotted to save weight, so that curving strips followed the line of each of his very prominent ribs. A continuation of his T-spine up the back of his neck in turn supported a snug, gleaming head basket that rose behind to curve over his shaven cranium, but in front was little more than a jaw shelf and two inward-curving cheekplates stopping just short of his somewhat rudimentary nose... Slightly lighter T-beams than those for his legs reinforced his arms and housed in their terminal inches his telescoping canes. Numerous black, foam-padded bands attached his whole framework to him.
|
| From A Specter is Haunting Texas,
by Fritz Leiber. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1968 Additional resources -
|
The author adds
Still operating wholly under my cloak, I untelescoped slim canes from my titanium exo-forearm-bones and with them and my good leg pushed myself erect and then still more erect until my head was on a level with those of the giants. The dwarfs’ eyes, steadily widening, followed me up. I noted that although they were of different heights, the dwarfs were all shoulder-bent to an equal four and a half feet — an odd detail.
Once fully erect — now I topped the giants by a half head — I pushed down bolts to lock booth knee-joints of my exoskeleton and stood on my two feet only, my exo-legs rigid rods from ankle to hip. Though teetery, it was practical — the taller the object, the easier it is to balance. I quickly retelescoped my canes — if Bill the Square Giant glimpsed them, he would surely cry, “Concealed weapons!”
Don't forget the atomic lifting suit from an earlier work.
...Eight small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables riding in the angles of the T-beams, much like antique dentist drills were worked, I've read. The motors were controlled by myoelectric impulses from his ghost muscles transmitted by sensitive pickups buried in the foam-padded bands...
(From 'A Specter Haunting Texas' by Fritz Lieber)
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and Technology by Fritz Leiber
Tech news articles related to A Specter is Haunting Texas
Tech news articles related to works by Fritz Leiber
Exoskeleton (Medical)-related
news articles:
- HAL-5 Exoskeleton To Carry Mountain Climber
- Robotic Ankle Exoskeleton Helps Users Regain Limb Function
- MIT Exoskeleton Shoulders The Weight For You
- Honda Walking Assist Exoskeleton Video
- ReWalk Exoskeleton Video
- Medical Exoskeleton Helps Paralyzed Man To Walk
- Honda Walking Assist Device
- Therapeutic Medical Exoskeleton Prototype
- HULC Exoskeleton From Lockheed Martin
- XOS 2 Raytheon Gen 2 Exoskeleton For Ironman 2
- Berkeley Bionics eLEGS Exoskeleton
- LOPES Robotic Exoskeleton Assists Stroke Victims
- Paralyzed Woman In Robotic Exoskeleton Finishes Marathon
- 3D Printed Exoskeleton Uplifts Little Girl
- Robotic Exoskeleton Releases Man From Wheelchair
- 'It Feels Like Robocop - Without A Weapon
- SuitX Cheap Medical Exoskeleton
- Medical Exoskeleton From Cyberdyne Gets FDA Approval
| 'Make Sunsets' Tweaks Climate By Atmospheric Alteration |
| Fusion Power Breakthrough? |
| Thin Film Dome Protects Cities From Nuclear Blasts |
| Cyborg Eye Flashlight Lights Up The Room |
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'The pokkecon rang again. *The coffee’s for him?* Tsuyoshi said.'
The Jetsons imagined so much future.
'Rod placed the brain inside the panel... the horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'
'But then... not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon.'
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.'
