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Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMpEeag7kkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMpEeag7kkM ("APL Flashback: 1965 - The "Hopkins Beast" Mobile Automaton ", t

• agumonkey 5y ago
  Wow, sorry for diverting the topic a tiny bit but there's a strong star wars IV reminiscence in these vids. I wonder how common this robots were in the minds of people of the 60s/70s.
• Multicomp 5y ago
  Amazing how my generic Roomba does all those same behaviors (navigate a room with obstacles, find its own charger) shown in that first video, but it took another 60 years for such a thing to be a cheap consumer product. Wonder how long it will take to find a Roomba that can be scheduled to run more than once every 24 hours? /J
  • zitterbewegung 5y ago
    It is much cheaper to make a prototype than making something at scale (although publishing the circuit diagrams and so forth might have been interesting. The biggest problem in this would be having a battery that would power a Roomba to do vacuuming without looking for an outlet every five minutes. Roombas also have edge detection so it doesn't fall down the stairs. But, all of the mother of all demo's technology took forty years to implement also.
    • joshjdr 5y ago
      > Roombas also have edge detection so it doesn't fall down the stairs. From article, “It could also ultrasonically recognize the stairway and doorways to take appropriate action.”