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"I received a nice letter the other day from the Dalai Lama. He had read 'The Nine Billion Names of God'. It is about a computer at a Tibetan monastery."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Slideway | ||
| A slidewalk, or moving walkway, that moves people forward. |
| Hamilton Felix let himself off at the thirteenth level of the Department of Finance, mounted a slideway to the left, and stepped off the strip. |
| Technovelgy from Beyond This Horizon,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Compare this to the slidewalk in Lieber's 1941 story Sanity.
You might be able to argue that an earlier version of this general concept can be found in the moving roadway from H.G. Wells' 1899 story When the Sleeper Wakes. The first commercial passenger conveyor belt was built in 1954 (by Goodyear for the Hudson and Manhattan railroad). As far as I know, the "electric stairway", or escalator, was introduced in 1900.
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| Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
