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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
 |
| Automatic Truck | ||
| A cargo-carrying vehicle that autonomously drives to the selected destination. |
Pretty early description of an autonomous truck (I don't know of an earlier one).
| Then there was a roar and a crash and a burst of daylight.
The two fugitives jumped up and ran, knocking
over several astonished people who were waiting for packages; their destination was an open door with daylight
beyond. Out there was a row of trucks with
laundry packages dropping into them from overhead
chutes. They were automatic trucks such as are used
for making deliveries beyond the pneumatic-tube zone.
They leaped into the foremost truck. Quentin set the switches on impulse for Bay Shore, because that was not where he wanted to go, and they both rolled back into the closed portion of the vehicle. The truck started slowly, gathered momentum, and automatically made its way out of the city. After fifteen minutes of eternity, they looked out. The truck was moving swiftly along a country road. Twilight was gathering rapidly. "We'd better jump out and let it go on," Quentin suggested. |
| Technovelgy from Mechanocracy,
by Miles J. Breuer. Published by Amazing Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the electrotruck from The Corkscrew of Space (1956) by Poul Anderson. Also, see the entries for the automatic automobile from David H. Keller's 1935 story The Living Machine, the Camden Speedster from Robert Heinlein's serialized 1941 novel Methuselah's Children and the Automatic Control Car from Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth (1976).
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Mechanocracy
More Ideas
and Technology by Miles J. Breuer
Tech news articles related to Mechanocracy
Tech news articles related to works by Miles J. Breuer
Automatic Truck-related
news articles:
- Self-Driving Truck Corridor From Manitoba To Mexico?
- Patented! Google's Autonomous Delivery Trucks
- Otto Autonomous Robot Trucks Run Into... Legal Snag
- Volvo's Autonomous Truck
| Martha Stewart Approves Ojai 'Living Room On Wheels' |
| Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft |
| The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist |
| Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology |
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'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
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'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
