Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Saturday 2 November 2013

Hooptedoodle #105 - The Automaton Which Writes


You may have seen this before - I hadn't. This slightly scary clip about an 18th Century clockwork figurine which can do handwriting has excited and troubled me in equal measure. Robots are fun but a bit disturbing anyway, and I keep finding myself wondering how such a device might get on with the cross belts on a regiment of Spanish fusiliers.

2 comments:

  1. I saw this on telly recently. I agree it's slightly disturbing!

    Programming it to paint figures is a novel idea, though.

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  2. Most impressive but the final pronouncement is off, since the lad only writes what he is told rather he is really the forerunner of the daisy wheel printer rather than the computer.

    Still, I was a little disturbed a few years ago when I bought some Bluebox die cast figures and was told they were factory painted by computer/robot.

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