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"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| 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.
|
| Technovelgy 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.
Also, in his 1964 story A Game of Unchance, Philip K. Dick describes a control harness.
See also the entry for the organic-based robot cat from The Cat and the King by Raymond F. Jones, published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1946:
The only other thing needed was a means of guiding him here by radio control when he was safely out of the field of your screens. It was easy to direct him here by inciting a small amount of pain or discomfort in certain nerves when lie moved in any direction but the one required to bring him here.
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and Technology from Sparrowhawk
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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
- Solar-Powered Remote-Control Cockroaches!
| Engineer Creates Crazy Motorized Track Hospital Bed |
| Xiaomi Self-Driving Self-Balancing Scooter |
| AV-STEP To Permit Sale Of Vehicles Without Steering Wheels Or Pedals |
| 'Robovan' Name Already Taken - Elon, Try These |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
