Origin of 3-D printing (again)

[Liam Proven]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 at 07:27, Stan Sieler via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Back in 2017, I posted something about seeing a possible first-ever
> reference to the idea of 3-D printing in a 1951 issue of Galaxy Science
> Fiction magazine.
>
> I stumbled over an even earlier one tonight...
>
> The September, 1941, issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine has a
> story called "Elsewhere" by Caleb Saunders (a pseudonym of Robert A.
> Heinlein).  On page 118 we see:
>
> [They used] a single general type of machine to manufacture almost
> anything.  They fed into it a plan which Igor called, for want of a better
> term, the blueprints.  It was, in fact, a careful scale model of the device
> to be manufactured;  the machine retooled itself and produced the artifact.
> A three-dimensional pantograph, Igor called the machine, vaguely and
> inaccurately.  One of them was, at that moment, molding the bodies of
> fighting planes out. of plastic, all in one piece and in one operation.

That is really quite remarkable! Good find!


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