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Aug 31, 2018 14 tweets 8 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Today in pulp I take a look at #robots! What do they do? What do they want? And what do they think of Elon Musk?

Let's see...
Karel Čapek famously coined the word 'robot' in his 1920 play "R.U.R."

Fun fact: in 1938 R.U.R. became the first TV science fiction programme ever broadcast by the BBC.
However prototype #robots have been around for decades. Here's one from 1909, although it doesn't work. Or shave.
The most famous of the early #robots is probably Maria, the robot from Metropolis. Here's a cutaway diagramme of her by Yuji Kaida.
During the 'radio craze' of the 1920s #robots seemed to be an achievable technology.

Here's Hugo Gernsback's Radio Police Automaton idea from 1924. Not sure about the placement of that tear gas nozzle...
However by the 1930s #robots were still ornamental gimmicks designed to wow the crowds.

Here's Steel Humanoid by Yasutaro Mitsui (1932) and Electro the smoking robot (1939).
WWII saw new ideas developed about how to make #robots for specific military tasks. Here's a robot television tank concept from April 1945.
The design of domestic #robots stalled for a long time. Compare the 1964 DC2 robot with the 1984 Atari Androbot: pretty much the same thing.
By 1984 we had twigged that if we wanted #robots then form should really follow function. "Universal" robots were probably a bad idea...
Bipedal #robots have always been tricky to make work (Honda's Asimo not withstanding!) The rule of thumb seems to be "4 legs good, 2 legs bad, 6 legs better."
Will robots pass the Turing Test any time soon? Does it depend on the smartness of the #robot, or the gullibility of the human? So far we have little to worry about...
However #robots and #AI will eventually take our jobs. Which is fine because we don't really like our jobs. Let the robots moan about unwashed cups left in the office kitchen, I'm having a lie in...
But evil #robots remain a worry. Whatever the future brings we must be prepared!
In conclusion, #robots are unlikely to be as exciting as we want them to be. This is a good thing as our imaginations are way too vivid already!

More stories another time...

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More from @PulpLibrarian

Dec 2, 2018
It is the greatest frog-worshiping zombie biker occult horror film ever made. Possibly the only one. It's certainly like no over movie you've ever seen.

Today in pulp, I look back at the 1971 classic Psychomania...
By the early 1970s British horror films were trying to get 'with it' to attract a younger audience. So it wasn't surprising that in 1971 screenwriter Arnaud d'Usseau tried to create a biker horror movie.
d'Usseau had previously written Horror Express, an Anglo-Spanish sci-fi/horror movie loosely based on John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas did their best with the material.
Read 18 tweets
Oct 9, 2018
"The gun is good! The Penis is evil!" bellows a huge stone head floating over the Irish countryside. It's quite a strange start to any movie, but it's about to get even stranger...

This is the story of John Boorman's classic 1974 film Zardoz.
In 1970 director John Boorman began work on a Lord Of The Rings film for United Artists. It would be an unusual adaption; The Beatles would be the Hobbits and Kabuki theatre would open the movie . Alas the studio said 'No', but the idea of a fantasy film stuck with Boorman...
So in 1972, following the commercial success of Deliverance, John Boorman started work on Zardoz - a fantasy film into which he would cram many unorthodox ideas. Initially Burt Reynolds was to play the lead role of Zed, but pulled out citing other filming commitments.
Read 13 tweets
Oct 8, 2018
As it's #LibrariesWeek let's look back at Britain's favourite library book*: the 1977 Usborne Guide to the Supernatural World!

(*according to my readers)
Supernatural World was an anthology of three existing Usborne pocketbooks: Vampires, Mysterious Powers and Ghosts. As an Usborne hardback it was deemed perfect for the nation's libraries.
Usborne had previously fascinated and frightened readers with its 1977 World Of The Unknown series: a terrifying triptych of ghosts, monsters and UFOs. Supernatural World would continue in the same vein.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 7, 2018
It was a university course for the price of a packet of cigarettes: Pelican Books! Maybe the blend wasn't to everyone's taste, but there's no denying the addictive nature of the range.

Today in pulp I look back at the autodidact's bible...
In 1937, two years after Allen Lane founded Penguin books, the company decided on a new imprint to provide academic and intellectual non-fiction for the general public. Lane believed there was a market for “intelligent books at a low price” which he was determined to serve
Over its lifetime Pelican sold a quarter of a billion books covering almost 3,000 subjects. Lane apparently came up with the Pelican name when he overheard a woman at King’s Cross railway station mistakenly asking for a Pelican book instead of a Penguin one.
Read 14 tweets
Oct 7, 2018
📩PULP POSTBAG TIME!📩

And today's letter is home computer related...
Mr Derrick Wibley from Penge writes: "Dear PL, I recently invested in a 48k ZX Spectrum to help run my stationery business 'Penge Pens'. However I'm worried it's not powerful enough to meet the needs of my ambitious business expansion programme. What should I do?"
Well Mr Wibley fear not! The ZX Spectrum is a fully-scaleable integrated solution to your business needs - provided you buy the right peripherals!
Read 13 tweets
Oct 6, 2018
The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984: these weren’t the first dystopian novels. There's an interesting history of Victorian and Edwardian literature looking at the impact of modernity on humans and finding it worrying.

Today in pulp I look at some early dystopian books…
Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863, was the second novel penned by Jules Verne. However his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel rejected it as too gloomy. The manuscript was only discovered in 1994 when Verne’s grandson hired a locksmith to break into an old family safe.
The novel, set in 1961, warns of the dangers of a utilitarian culture. Paris has street lights, motor cars and the electric chair but no artists or writers any more. Instead industry and commerce dominate and citizens see themselves as cogs in a great economic machine.
Read 26 tweets

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