Quotes and images from the “Robot” entry of Cybernetics A to Z by V. Pekelis (Moscow, Mir Publishers, 1970 and 1974):
“Robots of today are electronic creatures. One of them, an electronic citizen of Kalingrad, says to this effect: ‘I have no heart. I’m doing well with transistors and intricate electronic blocks.'”
“The ‘Siberian-2’ robot was built by boys from the Omsk municipal vocational school.”
“Don’t you agree that now the time has come to speak not only of robot toys? Real robot-assistants have made their appearance.
“Nowadays ‘electronic dwarfs’ are engaged in testing cars and planes, in shops with an unhealthy atmosphere; they sink to the depths of the oceans, rise in rockets to carry out cosmic studies.”
MYTHICAL ROBOTS:
CLOCKWORK ROBOTS:
“Mechanical men ‘mastered’ many professions, mainly ‘delicate’ ones. Abundant were flute and drum players, dancers, scribes. Rare among the robots were the trades of painters, bakers, hair-dressers.”
ELECTRICAL ROBOTS:
ELECTRONIC ROBOTS:
These “electronic men” that have gone a long way from the superficial likeness to man can do a lot of the things we can do.
“Some robots possess faculties peculiar only to them: for instance, they can have sense organs which are denied to man. For example, the robot ‘гпту’ not only sees light, hears sound, feels heat, and notices obstacles and avoids them artfully, but reacts to radioactivity, as well. Several meters away from the danger zone it sends various signals.”
More Electrical Robots:
“Already now scientists are allotting serious scientific tasks to robots. How much more is in store for them!”
Previously:
Mummy was a robot, daddy was a small non-stick kitchen utensil
Dedicated to you but you weren’t glistening
