12 Feb
1998
12 Feb
'98
11:53 p.m.
Uncle Roger wrote:
Speaking whihc, has anyone else ever read
Heinlein's book (whose name I've
forgotten) about the inventor whose partners steal everything and freeze
him for 20 years etc? One of the things he invents is an automated vacuum
cleaner. When Heinlein wrote the book, I'm sure that would have been very
expensive and very difficult to do. Now, however, it would seem like an
acheivable goal, especially since Heinlein does a lot of the specs for
you... So how come you can't buy one at Target? Anyone want to make millions?
(That book, btw, is what made me want to be an EE (along with Steve Ciarcia
calling it "programming in solder"). Perhaps someday I'll finally get to
become one...)
The book is _The Door into Summer_ and while admittedly the story has
become a bit dated (there wasn't a limited nuclear war in 1970 and
suspended animation _still_ hasn't hit the market), it is definitely
still a damned good read. In many instances, the proposed inventions
have been vastly superceded by the PC revolution -- a "Drafting Dan"
model would be no match for several shareware CAD systems I've used,
let alone AutoCAD. And of course we have much better equipment than
"Thorsen memory tubes". The trouble with the proposed automatic
housecleaning equipment has been the fact that even when vacuuming
the floor, the decision tree can be humongous. Still, having fairly
recently reread the book, I've gotton a few fresh ideas. Trouble is
that I'm not half the hardware hacker I need to be, especially when it
comes to the mechanical side.
I highly recommend the book, but then again I highly recommend almost
everything Heinlein ever wrote. Heinlein's influence probably did
more to interest me in mathematics and technology (including computers)
than any other thing in my youth, and thus directly got me into this
mailing list. I'm still trying to figure out how to tie all of these
incompatible machines together to come up with something comparable to
Mycroft Holmes.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.