General Electric’s 1965 Walking Truck

Walking robots, such as those from Boston Dynamics, are all the rage these days.

But does their ancestor, the human-operated Walking Truck, ever get any credit?

Well, this fellow did a magnificent article on the device.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 18, 2017
Category: Anthropomorphism | Robots | 1960s

Comments

Kind of makes one wish that the Three Laws Of Robotics wasn't just a fictional construct for a series of science fiction stories. Those Boston Dynamics constructs give me the creeps.

OTOH, don't forget what Ripley was able to do to the Alien Queen with her powered skeleton walker.

Posted by KDP on 04/18/17 at 11:51 AM

I think that John Deere, the farm machinery manufacturer, made the walker. With the current laws on copyright locks, Ripley was lucky that she didn't need to call a "factory certified" flunky to reboot the computer if it was down!

Posted by BMN on 04/23/17 at 09:14 AM

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