Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Roachster | ||
| A genetically-engineered vehicle based on arthropod DNA; uses implanted control structures. |
In this possible future (around 2044), most purely mechanical devices like cars, trucks and planes are replaced by enlarged organisms combined with implanted control devices.
| "...When General Bodies designed their Roachster, they had an immense advantage. An arthropod's shell is laid down by an underlying membrane and is periodically replaced or molted. Once they had gengineered their hybrid to grow bumps in suitable places, beneath the legs... then they could have the membrane secrete a second layer of shell inside those bumps, just within the first... The end result is a wheel mounted on a central hub. The genimal's legs run backward on top of the wheels...
"There's the brain, the spinal chord, the motor centers. A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain." She explained how the controller, a computer, translated movements of the tiller or control yoke and the throttle and brake pedals into electrical signals and routed them as appropriate to the jets or the genimal's motor centers, triggering the genimal's own nervous system into commanding its muscles to serve the driver. All the necessary programming was built into the hardware, burned into PROM chips like the one pictured in his glossy. "...A Roachster's plug is installed beneath the shell-secreting membrane, so molting will not effect it.
|
| From Sparrowhawk,
by Thomas A. Easton. Published by Ace Books in 1990 Additional resources -
|
Jack Vance had a very similar idea in his 1964 novel The Last Castle; see the entry for power wagons.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Sparrowhawk
More Ideas
and Technology by Thomas A. Easton
Tech news articles related to Sparrowhawk
Tech news articles related to works by Thomas A. Easton
Roachster-related
news articles:
- HI-MEMS: Cyborg Beetle Microsystem
- Spy Moth Cyborg On/Off Switch Perfected
- Radio-Controlled Beetle By UC Berkeley
- Remote-Controlled Cyborg Beetle Video
- Roboroach Slalom Steering Video
- Roboroach Control? There's An App For That
- Roboroach Now Shipping!
- Steerable Locusts Detect Explosives
| Electric Vehicle Prices Will Drop To $2,890 |
| Tesla Model S And X Moves Toward KITT Knight Rider Styling |
| Gyro-X Self-Balancing Two-Wheeler Car |
| InMotion V11 Electric Unicycle Gets Air (Video) |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'... with large padded feet, who were apparently polishing their way the whole length of Rama's six artificial suns.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray on its upper surface...'
'the human seats took up two-thirds of the room in each'
'the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits...'
'Over her lacerated right shoulder he sprayed art-derm...'
Now, that was a Pontiac Trans Am with some real style.
'There is a built-in microphone that hears everything you say, and an electric brain that selects a suitable answer.'
