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It's funny. Laugh. Technology

Robots Of The Victorian Era 200

Posted by timothy from the truth-in-fiction dept.
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.)
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Robots Of The Victorian Era More

Robots Of The Victorian Era

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  • What about tranzor Z (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Or voltron?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Don't forget about the female robot in [Tranzor Z]. The hooters would unscrew and fire from the chest like explosive warheads. Ahhh, such fond childhood memories.....

        I think I was mentally scarred by that cartoon as a kid, and her rocket boobs. I remember the first time I saw a real pair. I remember fearing that they'd launch off and explode, and I also remember being slightly disappointed that they didn't.

        (random FYI: Tranzor Z's original Japanese was Great Mazinger.)

  • What about... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:37PM (#7791405)
    Robots of the Vicki [imdb.com] era?

  • Must be said! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Metallic Matty ( 579124 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:38PM (#7791411)
    Bite my shiny metal ass.

  • Robotic Ducks (Score:5, Informative)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:38PM (#7791415)
    This robotic duck [unimaas.nl] dates back to the 1700s.
    • People were tricked to believe that it really digested its food and produced excrements from it. I can hardly control my excrement!

    • Re:Robotic Ducks (Score:4, Funny)

      by ScottGant ( 642590 ) <scott_gant@sbcgl ... minus herbivore> on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:44PM (#7791456) Homepage
      I for one welcome our Robotic Duck Overlords....

    • Re:Robotic Ducks (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You know, you may think they're cute, but we had a whole flock of these things infest our attic. Exterminators won't touch 'em, and let me tell you - they *do* produced a ton of excrement! Lucky for us it wasn't real excrement - just some kind of mixture of mercury, asbestos, and cyanide.
    • "De Vaucanson's duck swam, quacked, flapped its wings, and swallowed its food. People were tricked to believe that it really digested its food and produced excrements from it."

      I've finally traced back the origin of the term 'core dump'!
    • Wow, I'd always meant to google around for the robotic duck... That particular robotic duck plays an interresting character in the novel "Maxon & Dixon". Cool =:-)

  • My favorite (Score:5, Funny)

    by blitzoid ( 618964 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:39PM (#7791418) Homepage
    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.
    • my personal fave is the i one built shortly after world war II, with a glass bulb head full of blinking vacuum tubes, a big refrigerator sized torso, and big flailing arms with pinchers on the end. i bet i could get linux running on it these days.

    • INFORMATIVE?! (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Here's informative [imdb.com] for you. (Hint: IT WAS A MOVIE.)

    • Re:My favorite (Score:5, Funny)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:45PM (#7791465) Homepage Journal
      Interesting? I'm starting to think that moderator points shouldn't be alloted unless you've passed a pop-culture test.

      • Re:My favorite (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Xzzy ( 111297 )
        dude, don't spoil it. :)

        Half the fun of these foot icon stories is reading the posts from people who totaly missed it. My favorite is a post further down that read "you all do realize this is a fabrication right?"

        Well shit, I never noticed until you said something!
      • I'm starting to think that moderator points shouldn't be alloted unless you've passed a pop-culture test.

        I recently passed a pop-culture test. Stank like hell, but I felt a lot better afterwards. Must have been something bad I ate the night before.

        -kgj

    • Re:My favorite (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      informative? Fuck, he's talking about that shitty movie "Wild Wild West". If you don't know what he's talking about, why are you moderating it up?!!?!?!
      • That movie was nominated for a "Razzie" which was presented by Robert Conrad (who asked to be the presenter).

        I was a fan of the series, especially the first two years. Just never warmed up to the idea of Will Smith as James West...

        The TV-movie of TWWW (1980) was pretty decent, especially with the producers misunderstanding what Ross Martin meant when he wanted to do a part "in drag" (Ross wanted to something in disguise - the producers assumed the more modern meaning of the phrase).

        • The giant steam spider make another appearance in a recent episode of "The Simpsons". A Civil War re-enactment was being held near Springfield. Professor Frink decided that his robot spider would be an appropriate addition.

    • Re:My favorite (Score:3, Interesting)

      by uncoveror ( 570620 )
      I think the coolest robots are the ones making popular music, [uncoveror.com] especially since the kids can't tell the difference.

  • Virtual Soldier and then some... (Score:5, Funny)

    by segment ( 695309 ) <sil AT politrix DOT org> on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:42PM (#7791444) Homepage Journal
    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 [darpa.mil]

    And on another note...

    SCO Soldier

    Program Team: SCUM Group [scumgroup.com]

    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* (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:44PM (#7791458) Journal
    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...

    • Re:*sigh* (Score:2, Funny)

      by TechnoPops ( 590791 )
      Well, I think the solution for you is pretty obvious: Go to a costume shop, find a get-up for the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and wear it day-in, day-out. The ladies will be all over you in no time! :P
    • "grr, that ugly looking robot has got a GF, hell, I wish I looked like a robot... "

      You can try strapping a laser pointer to your head. Do a couple of test runs, though. You'll get in trouble if that dot lands on her chest.
  • The one with the yellow brick road...ahh what's it called...??!!

  • Robots, indeed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:49PM (#7791491) Journal
    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?
    • I, on the other hand, wouldn't rest if such an exchange could take place.

  • Ajeeb (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Charvak ( 97898 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:51PM (#7791498)
    Strange it may seems but Ajeeb is arabic (or persian) for strange.
  • Just lie back and think of electric sheep.

  • robot schmobot (Score:3, Funny)

    by g-to-the-o-to-the-g ( 705721 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:51PM (#7791503) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • These are all either a joke, part of a story or game.
    • I wonder how useful such robots actually were.

      Very, actually.

      Y'see, the robo-men--or "marines", as we liked to call them--had the useful ability to actually fight and follow orders, and not go run off and fight for food or land or women. These "marines" are the perfect--nay, the ESSENTIAL--soldier for the Great War front back then.

      How do I know that? Well, heck boy, I'm an officer! Got me a ten-year pass on leave, so I hopped into one've our time-machines, and sped forward to this time, to live among

  • hmmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    steam men... sounds sort of sexy from a gay point of view. ;)

  • Deep Blue Needed a Turk (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:52PM (#7791512) Homepage
    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? (Score:5, Informative)

    by VonGuard ( 39260 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:54PM (#7791519) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • The Oz Robots (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:58PM (#7791536)
    Don't forget the marvelous "robots" of Oz, making their appearances in the 1900s during the Victorian era:

    Tik-Tok [science-frontiers.com], 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).

    • Interestingly, Tik-Tok had two wind-up keys: One was for movement, and the other, if I recall, was for thinking/speech.
    • The tin woodsman was not a robot. He was a piecemeal cyborg. An offended witch caused him to 'accidentally' chop pieces off himself while plying his trade. As each limb and part was lost, the local tinsmith made him a replacement, until his entire body had been replaced.
      At least, that's what's in the book. Personally, I find it incredible. It's enough to cast doubt on the veracity of the entire OZ ouvre.
      • Yes. During his transition, he was a cyborg, and that is what he is best counted as. I wonder if a cyborg had been imagined previous to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"?

        However, once all of his parts were replaced, it is hard to argue that he was not a robot by that point.
      • The tin woodsman was not a robot. He was a piecemeal cyborg. An offended witch caused him to 'accidentally' chop off himself while plying his trade.

        That has always seemed like a likely story: "Were you clumsy with your axe, Nick Chopper?" "Why no, a witch made me do it!"

        "Personally, I find it incredible. It's enough to cast doubt on the veracity of the entire OZ ouvre.

        and the "witch made me do it" excuse could throw the hole workmens comp business into chaos.

        Nick Chopper- a man barely able to use a

  • Original Wild Wild West (Score:4, Funny)

    by tjstork ( 137384 ) <todd.bandrowskyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:59PM (#7791540) Homepage Journal

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

  • Do it right.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @08:59PM (#7791544)
    ...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 [amazon.com]: 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."

  • these robots are cool, but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ambush_Bug ( 106102 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:02PM (#7791565)
    none of them are nearly as funny as
    Angrybot [wearerobots.com].

    "My credit card's not rejected, YOU'RE rejected!"

  • The Boiler Plate Soldier Article Is A Fraud! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Serapth ( 643581 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:09PM (#7791603)
    They got the facts all wrong... the Boilerplate soldier wasnt developed in chicago... it was developed in Paris.

    You see... the Parisans knew well in advanced just how many battles they were going to have to surrender in, over the next hundred years, so they designed this robot to do it for them. You see, the average French soldier was far to arrogant to admit that they, yes... did in fact suck... however, the French government refused to accept the casualities of extended conflicts due to the fact they had nobody amongst themselves brave enough or confident enough to actually surrender, so they created a robot to face the shame for them. Sadly the protype never lived up to the hype, and for the next 8 consecutive battles, the French had to swallow their pride and surrender Mano-eh-mano.

    Shees, cant the history books get anything right? :D
    • Sadly the protype never lived up to the hype, and for the next 8 consecutive battles, the French had to swallow their pride and surrender Mano-eh-mano.

      One of the more interesting features of the French `Chaudiere de Plat` Robot was that it looked exactly the same on the back as it did the front. This way, when it retreated with the rest of the French army, the winning army would always see the angry faces of the robots facing them (it looked like much less of a complete route of the French army, and it my
    • ROFL... That brings to mind this little snippet from a favorite old book:

      That same day, Markoff Chaney was hiding in a coffee urn at Orgasm Research, hatching further mischief.
      The clock struck midnight, the cleaning women left; and out crept Chaney with an evil grin.
      Alas, he was not the only intruder that night, for as he padded down the hall he suddenly heard a hoarse voice in one of the laboratories.
      "Better than human, are you, you @*)@'&ing #$%&'er? Better than human, my %$#&! Ta
  • I think the best inventions have come from T. Herman Zwiebel, for his use of immigrants and the steamless steamshovel.

    True, maybe not robots in the strictest sense, but definitely ahead of their time.

    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.

    • Embrace and extend! (Score:5, Funny)

      by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:28PM (#7791689)
      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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) * on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:28PM (#7791693) Journal
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:31PM (#7791706)
    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? (Score:4, Informative)

    by C10H14N2 ( 640033 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:33PM (#7791713)
    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 (Score:4, Funny)

    by h4x0r-3l337 ( 219532 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:33PM (#7791714)
    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 [bigredhair.com], instead of only seeing the revisionist version of the picture [msu.edu], 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.

  • What powered these robots? (Score:3, Informative)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:47PM (#7791771)
    Were these robots powered by Microsoot steam engines, which required expensive coal from a monolithic business concern? Or did they run on steam plants designed under the "Open Flame" initiative, in which users could burn just about anything they wanted to power the robots without paying Microsoot?

  • Gosh, where is PimpBot (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cylix ( 55374 ) * on Monday December 22, 2003 @09:56PM (#7791808) Homepage Journal
    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 [drexel.edu] I think he could have taken the Steam Man.

  • The difference (Score:5, Interesting)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burns@@@hotmail...com> on Monday December 22, 2003 @10:02PM (#7791836)
    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 [vdare.com]--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.

  • Hoax. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Dr. Descartes ( 673148 )
    For those inclined to believe the website, it is indeed a hoax. Proof [wouldthatitwere.com].

    Be that as it may, I think the site was fun and funny at the same time

  • Steam Man book (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dmoynihan ( 468668 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @10:17PM (#7791910) Homepage
    That site didn't have the complete text, which is available here [blackmask.com].

    Sorta interesting with all its boy inventor stuff...

  • They managed to simulate walking? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DJStealth ( 103231 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @10:22PM (#7791930)
    Does anyone know if/how they managed to get the 'robots' to simulate walking? Up until recently it was nearly impossible to get a robot to simulate real walking while keeping balance.

    I think the first modern robot to actually do this was that Honda one that came out last year.

  • Nikola Tesla (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I rather like his radio-controlled robot submarine [teslasociety.com] from 1898.

  • Karakuri Ningyo (Score:4, Informative)

    by News for nerds ( 448130 ) on Monday December 22, 2003 @11:14PM (#7792152) Homepage
    Japan also has such human-shaped mechanical automata called "Karakuri Ningyo" since 12th century.

    karakuri.info [karakuri.info]
    Karakuri Frontier [nagoya-u.ac.jp]

  • The Steam Man story is available from Geutenberg (Score:3, Interesting)

    by caffeineboy ( 44704 ) <skidmore.22@o s u . edu> on Monday December 22, 2003 @11:48PM (#7792293)
    The Geutenberg Project has the text of the story "Steam Man of the Prairies" here [gutenberg.net].
    For those who are interested in this work.

  • More disproof... (Score:2, Informative)

    by cvk ( 696855 )

    I'm sure that everyone reading the Boilerplate [bigredhair.com] story (about the would-be soldier, scout, mechanical marvel-man, etc...) wondered what kind of magic pills the guy who wrote it was taking since clearly a steam-powered man never did anything he claims it did.

    Some more (dis)proof [portlandmercury.com] is provided for those who couldn't find that magic pill. Mechanical soldier, my shiny metal ass!

  • Pneuman! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @12:13AM (#7792409) Homepage Journal
    Lets not forget Pneuman [dte.uma.es], Tom Strong's loyal pneumatic [tripod.com] robot [joeacevedo.com] man servant.
  • Actually, Boilerplate is a fictional robot:

    http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/bp.report. ht ml
  • Steam Man? Electric Man? Automatic Man? Good to hear Dr. Wily was alive and well in the 1800s.
  • Here [wouldthatitwere.com] you can find more info about the Boilerplate hoax.

  • Forgotten Futures, the Scientific Romance RPG (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Allen Varney ( 449382 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @06:08AM (#7793417) Homepage

    Gamers who enjoyed reading about these fictional robots from the penny-dreadful and dime-novel days should check out Forgotten Futures [forgottenfutures.com]. From the site: "Forgotten Futures is Marcus Rowland's table-top role playing game based on scientific romances, the predecessors of science fiction that were published in the late 19th and early 20th century. Each collection focuses on a different theme, and include space travel through the heavily populated solar system of 1900 [slashdot.org], Ghost Hunting in Edwardian England [slashdot.org], and adventures with Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger [slashdot.org]." Fun stuff, and great value too.

  • He deserves to be known as the father of robotics and cybernetics. Ebul-iz smail bin ar-Razzaz el-Cezeri lived in the 13.cc and dedicated his life to build automats. Link down is turkish but you can see a picture of his man-like robot design there.
    http://www.teknoturk.org/docking/yazilar/t t000052- yazi.htm

  • Fake - or is it...? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @06:07PM (#7799048) Homepage
    True, the site mentioned is a fake site, a work of fiction (and interesting in its own right). But behind this veil of deception lies intriguing truths!

    As already has been mentioned [slashdot.org], there were "robotic" devices in the Victorian era and before! De Vaucanson's duck was only one such marvel of the era. There are the Droz family automata (which are real close to actual robots, the devices are able to be "re-programmed" via cams and levers, though such changes are very difficult to make). There is another automata, I forget the maker's name, which is a silver swan that moves with a very smooth grace. Lastly, there really was a steam-powered two-legged walking machine - it used a small steam engine, exhaust came out it's head, and a steam whistle in its mouth. It used a rotating cam/crank mechanism to allow it to walk stiff-leggedly around in a circle, via a long arm attached to a central pivot point.

    Automata during the Victorian period and before served to fuel the imagination of quite a variety of characters - Babbage himself became interested in a variety of automata of the period, including Kempelen's Turk chess player (more on this in a bit). Mary Shelly saw the Droz automata, which has been said to be one of the sparks for Frankenstein.

    These people and many others were influenced by these machines in very profound ways. They caused many "top" people of the day to pause and ask themselves and others "can a machine be alive - can it think for itself?" - no doubt the Turk, though not truely a robot, was a very advanced form of automata commanded by a hidden operator (it was no simple puppet - it was more like a remotely operated robot in action). Robots like the Turk caused much discussion about the possibility of machines being intelligent, and indirectly led to the questioning of whether we humans are nothing more than intelligent meat machines. Shelly's Frankenstein questioned the morality and desires behind the need to create machines (and the blending of a created man with human parts) - and what happens when that machine seeks companionship and answers to its own life.

    These themes continue to resonate with us to this very day - it is what is driving the human race to create ever more advanced robots and androids. These themes are seen in various AI research, game programming and development (to make the characters in the world more believable - virtual robots, if you will), and other simulations.

    Victorian-era "robotics" are only one stage (and really, a middle stage) in the development of machines to automatically (and intelligently) do our bidding (hopefully alongside us)...

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