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"I never saw why I had to give up science in order to write, or the other way around, so I didn't!"
- Gregory Benford
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| Serving Robot | ||
| A non-humanoid robot designed to serve. |
| As they sat down, he aimed his ultraviolet light-pencil at a serving robot. Unlike Mardukan robots, which looked like surrealist conceptions of Pre-Atomic armored knights, it was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor on its own contragravity; as it approached, its top opened like a bursting beetle shell and hinged trays of food swung out. The boy looked at it in fascination.
"Is that a Sword-World robot, sir, or did you capture it somewhere?" "It's one of our own." He was pardonably proud; it had been built on Tanith a year before. "Has an ultrasonic dishwasher underneath, and it does some cooking on top, at the back." |
| Technovelgy from Space Viking,
by H. Beam Piper. Published by Analog in 1962 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the usuform robots from Anthony Boucher's story Q.U.R..
Thanks to Winchell Chung (aka @nyrath) for the tip.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Space Viking
More Ideas
and Technology by H. Beam Piper
Tech news articles related to Space Viking
Tech news articles related to works by H. Beam Piper
Serving Robot-related
news articles:
- The First 'Drone Cafe' Started By Dutch Students
- Flying Robot Waiters From Infinium Robotics
- 7-Eleven Drone Delivers Chix Sandwich And Slurpee
- Drone Deliveries Instead Of Waiters In Restaurants?
| Robot Gas Station Attendant Pumps Gas For You |
| SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits |
| Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots |
| What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots? |
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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.'
