Robots Of The Victorian Era

prostoalex writes "Somehow the robotic inventions of the 19th century are terribly under-appreciated. But when you read about a new Aibo or running humanoid robot, don't forget the mechanical marvels of the 19th century. The Steam Man, unveiled in literature in 1865, would provide the willing consumer with a truly horseless carriage. The Electric Man(1885) was a working prototype before 19th century was over, too. The Boilerplate was a prototype soldier built in 1893 to resolve potential conflicts between the nations, and, according to promotional photographs, was usually surrounded by young females. And, finally, the Automatic Man, unveiled in 1900, a 7'5'' robot capable of many things, but mainly pulling carriages." (Don't forget the less-fictional, more-fraudulent Ajeeb and The Turk.)

Comments

What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots of the Vicki era?

Must be said!

[Metallic Matty]

Bite my shiny metal ass.

Robotic Ducks

[G4from128k]

This robotic duck dates back to the 1700s.

Re:Robotic Ducks

[ScottGant]

I for one welcome our Robotic Duck Overlords....

My favorite

[blitzoid]

My personal favorite is the colossal 50 foot tall mechanical spider built shortly after the civil war. It could shoot fireballs, nets, and even crush wagons! Sadly, it was destroyed in a grain-alcohol disaster shortly after completion.

It was designed by many of the worlds most prominent scientists in a variety of fields, whom all came together to focus on this single effort. It really is a shame we don't have the ability today to team up all of our top scientists to create massive mechanical horrors.

Re:My favorite

[NanoGator]

Interesting? I'm starting to think that moderator points shouldn't be alloted unless you've passed a pop-culture test.

Re:My favorite

[blitzoid]

I imagine you could port Linux over to it, but the ram they used in the brain was pretty spotty. You'd hear a lot of "DANGER, SEGMENTATION FAULT! DANGER!"

home robots...

[ptorrone]

i'd say in the last year more and more robots are living in my home. here they are...enjoy, bitch about, tease...

qrio, sony's new human robot. the latest ones can jog. this one i don't have of course, but i've been around them for work projects.

aibo photos, of the aibo and what it takes pictures of and send via wifi to my email account. this is the new aibo ers-7

aibo training, new bone. his name is wuffie, after a cool concept in cory doctorow's latest book, quicktime.

my home made robot, made with a tablet pc and..

robot dance video, with the robots in my home. roombas, aibos, home made robots, etc..quicktime

my home made robot, made with a tablet pc and..

aibo (old gen) on it's scooter..

video of my roomba running around, winmedia and i have a segwway ht, which might be a robotic platform for some experiments.

cheers,
pt

Virtual Soldier and then some...

[segment]

The Virtual Soldier

Program Manager: Dr. Richard Satava

The Virtual Soldier Program seeks to establish a new capability that will revolutionize medical care to support the soldier. The program will create the mathematical modeling approaches to develop an information (computational) representation of an individual soldier (a holographic medical electronic representation or holomer) that can be used to augment medical care on and off the battlefield with a new level of integration. This virtual soldier will be based upon a highly complex model that is derived from biologically driven principles and populated with properties that are extracted from evidence-based data. The initial Phase 1 effort will consist of a two-component, three-dimensionally displayed model: (1) An organ-tissue system model component, and (2) a properties level model component. Once derived, the virtual soldier will provide multiple capabilities, including but not limited to automatic diagnosis of battlefield injuries, prediction of soldier performance, testing and evaluation of non-lethal weapons, and virtual clinical trials.

DARPA

And on another note...

SCO Soldier

Program Team: SCUM Group

The SCO Soldier Program seeks to scan source codes and find the printf function on those lines of codes and report them back to its owner. Using covert tactics and illicit (possibly) illegal methods, the SCO Soldier can then automate fascimile transmissions of source code to a database which can then quantum generate subpoenas on the fly.

With the speed rate of over 2billion lines of code per minute, the SCO soldier can quickly misconstrue every line of code for pseudo-authenticity and create a manically broad worded asinine report which sounds great on the outside but is actually empty on the inside.

SCO Soldier not available in Open Source and will be licensed to someone who is willing to be sued immediately afterwards in efforts to ensure that SCO Soldier is functioning properly and generating frivolous lawsuits.

*sigh*

[Dreadlord]

The Boilerplate was a prototype soldier built in 1893 to resolve potential conflicts between the nations, and, according to promotional photographs, was usually surrounded by young females.

grr, that ugly looking robot has got a GF, hell, I wish I looked like a robot...

Robots, indeed

[Dirtside]

I won't rest until the following exchange can happen in real life:

[Bender and Fry in Bender's apartment.]
Bender: [while sleeping] Kill all humans, kill all humans, must kill all hu...
Fry: [shakes him] Bender wake up!
Bender: I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it.
Fry: Listen, Bender, uh... where's your bathroom?
Bender: Bath-what?
Fry: Bathroom.
Bender: What room?
Fry: Bathroom!
Bender: What what?
Fry: Aaah, never mind.
[Bender shuts himself down to sleep, Fry lies on the floor]
Bender: [while sleeping] Hey, sexy mama... Wanna kill all humans?

Ajeeb

[Charvak]

Strange it may seems but Ajeeb is arabic (or persian) for strange.

robot schmobot

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

I wonder how useful such robots actually were. Considering that today, engineers are still trying to overcome basic challenges associated with things we take for granted such as walking, I doubt that these robots were at all practical.

On another note, its quite impressive that these were developed (assuming their ligitimate), considering the level of technology available at the time.

Deep Blue Needed a Turk

[John Hasler]

I've never understood how the operators of all the various chess-playing computers have been able to resist the temptation to construct a Turk replica to make moves for their machines.

Uhm.... Can you say Hoax?

[VonGuard]

Doesn't anyone realize that the Boilerplate stuff is complete fabrication?

HAH! A truism that's also a pun! Ok, ok, I suppose they really couldn't fabricate the parts for him back then...

But it's still a load of horse pucky.

Re:Uhm.... Can you say Hoax?

[Thanatopsis]

Not only is Boilerplate a hoax, every single robot story in this post is a well known hoax. Steam Man, Electric Man and Automatic are hoaxes designed to look like a period piece.
for more information
Boilerplate Hoax

The Oz Robots

[AtariAmarok]

Don't forget the marvelous "robots" of Oz, making their appearances in the 1900s during the Victorian era:

Tik-Tok, seen here as illustrated by John R Neill, the original Oz illustrator (He also appeared in a 1985 film). He does resemble "Boilerplate", doesn't he?

The Tin Man (or Tin Woodman of Oz). Everyone knows what he looks like. First appearing in 1900, during the Victorian era for sure, he has to be one of the first cyborgs in anything (if not the very first).

Original Wild Wild West

[tjstork]

Isn't this ground well covered by the original Wild Wild West..?

Do it right....

[djupedal]

...read 'The Difference Engine'...

"A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time."

Embrace and extend!

[AtariAmarok]

Off-topic: Can we change Bill Gate's image here to match the boilerplate robot? I would find it less menacing and more approachable. It, too, would be heartless.

I can just see the Tin Gates marching toward us, tottering on stiff metal legs, arms waving in front. Rasping from the tiny grate at the mouth: "Embrace and extend! Embrace and extend! Embrace and extend!"

Actually for the time in film ... Robbie The Robot

[adzoox]

I think Robbie The Robot was a marvel of film/makeup/design for the 50's. Eventhough clearly a man in a suit, still one of the coolest and most functional futuristic robots ever. Also the robot from Metropolis was a wonder of makeup and design by Fritz Lang.

Victorian Era Laws of Robots

[AtariAmarok]

1. Robot legs, like chair legs, must be covered by knitted doilies at all times.
2. A robot should never harm a British subject of the Crown. Harming colonials is OK. This includes during a tiger-hunt.
3. If a robot sees a brother robot down on his luck, the robot should give the brother robot a fresh lump of coal so the brother robot can work up a head of steam and forge ahead.

Anyone pass the third grade?

[C10H14N2]

A primary-school level of research would yield the intuitively obvious result that these are excerpts of the fictional writing of Edward Ellis and Luis Sernaren.

This list may prove useful:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/List_of _f ictional_robots
duplicated here:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_in_lit erature

And in case you think that Maureen Stapleton is really an android "Electric Grandmother," you can look here to reassure yourself that in fact she is a human actor, not a robot:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0083876/

boilerplate

[h4x0r-3l337]

Finally the revisionist conspiracy has been exposed! Their shameless attempts at hiding the existence of BoilerPlate will no longer work. At last the world can see BoilerPlate posing with Pancho Villa, instead of only seeing the revisionist version of the picture, where BoilerPlate has been replaced by some nameless revolutionary. Kinda makes one wonder if those US soldiers in Iraq aren't actually BoilerPlate Mark 10's.

Gosh, where is PimpBot

[Cylix]

The man, the myth, the pimp. This is the PimpBot 5000. He combines the classic sensibilities of a 1950's robot with the dynamic flare of a 1970's street pimp. Pimpbot 5000 I think he could have taken the Steam Man.

The difference

[randall_burns]

The country that is pushing hard for use of Robotics right now is Japan. The force driving robotics in Japan is the fact that in Japan high levels of immigration are politically unacceptable--and the economic powers that be want Japan to continue to be economically viable. What that means is that there is a _lot_ more push in the area of robotics and automation now than in the 19th century. Japan is quite literally betting their economic future in this direction.

Karakuri Ningyo

[News for nerds]

Japan also has such human-shaped mechanical automata called "Karakuri Ningyo" since 12th century.

karakuri.info
Karakuri Frontier