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"I'm strictly an ivory-tower person. I can explain things but I can't do things."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Biltong Life Form | ||
| Remarkable organic manufacturing aliens, probably indigenous to the Centaurus system. |
From cars to radios to fine glassware, the Biltong life forms could create beautiful, working copies. The survivors of war relied on the Biltong life forms to make copies - "prints" - of necessary objects.
But there was a problem.
As fast as the prints wore out, they were replaced by the Pittsburgh Biltong. New prints were made from the original objects preserved from the War.
| The Biltong was dying. Huge and old, it squatted in the center of the settlement park, a lump of ancient yellow protoplasm, thick, gummy, opaque. Its pseudopodia were dried up, shriveled to blackened snakes that lay inert on the brown grass. The center of mass looked oddly sunken. The Biltong was gradually settling as the moisture was burned from its veins by the weak overhead sun...
The Biltong's central lump undulated faintly. Sickly, restless heavings were noticeable as it struggled to hold onto its dwindling life... On the concrete platform, in front of the dying Biltong, lay a heap of originals to be duplicated. Beside them, a few prints had been commenced, unformed balls of black ash mixed with the moisture of the Biltong's body, the juice from which it laboriously constructed its prints. |
| From Pay for the Printer,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Satellite Science Fiction in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Objects that were poorly copied, or copied from copies, ended up being useless.
Charlotte took the puddinged watch back and restored it to her sweater pocket.
Compare also to the method used in the cosmic express from the 1930 story of that name by Jack Williamson and to Deposition (3D Printing) from Assassin (1978) by James P. Hogan.
The works of the tiny Swiss watch were a fused, unformed mass of shiny steel. No separate wheels or jewels or springs, just a glitter of pudding...
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| A 'Genuine Nanorobotic Production Factory' |
| Made In Space To Manufacture Optical Fiber In Orbit |
| Self-Assembling Bacteria Build A Pressure Sensor |
| Artificial Spider Silk |
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