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"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Metal Desk Car | ||
| A combination work desk and vehicle for librarians and researchers; part desk part carnival ride. |
No area is too small - make it more efficient!
| The research workers rode up
and down among the walls of books and
filing cabinets in little metal desk cars,
like marbles chasing through an upright
maze.
The eager King of Speed donned a brain stimulator, glanced at his assignments, mounted a car, sailed up the wall, and delved into the cases. Charged with hope, he zipped from stack to stack... ...Although the wall-scaling mechanisms were replete with safety devices, Ben, in a burst of energy following his exercise, found the weak link. Sliding into his desk car, he jammed at a lever, snapped it off clean. With a whiz he rocketed up toward the lofty ceiling too fast, flew the vertical tracks, and plummeted to the floor, car and all. |
| Technovelgy from Ben Gleed, King of Speed,
by Don Wilcox. Published by Amazing Stories in 1939 Additional resources -
|
Read about the desk personal computer from Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card and the desk secretary from The Long Result (1963) by John Brunner.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Ben Gleed, King of Speed
More Ideas
and Technology by Don Wilcox
Tech news articles related to Ben Gleed, King of Speed
Tech news articles related to works by Don Wilcox
Metal Desk Car-related
news articles:
- Moving Desks Not SciFi After All
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| Meetings To Be Recorded And Scored For Body Language |
| Would You Get 'Chipped'? Michigan May Ban Employers |
| Workplace Monitoring Hell, I Mean, Tool For Safe Distancing |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
