Also known as the John Deere Walking Tractor. It was like a real-life version of the walkers from Star Wars (minus laser cannons). Details from Forestry Thoughts:
It was made by a subsidiary of Timberjack, called Plustech Oy, and designing began in 1995 and the following prototype, called Plusjack was presented in 1999. Deere & Company purchased the company Timberjack in 2000. And in 2005, Timberjack Oy became John Deere Forestry Oy. Actually the designing department of John DeereĀ“s forestry machines still is in Tampere, where they design everything.
There were few reasons why there were only two ever made. One was high price and other main one was its slowness in the field. It is a remarkable piece of engineering ahead of its time. One of these machines is at display at the Lusto, at the Finnish Forest Museum. And the other one I think, was shipped to USA to be displayed at some John Deere exhibition.
In 1966, Golfcraft of Escondido, California debuted a robot golfer whose job was to test new golf clubs and balls. They held a contest to name him, and after receiving over 1500 entries decided to call him "Mr. Analyst."
More details from the Long Beach Press-Telegram (Aug 21 1966):
The perfect golfer is Mr. Analyst, a robot whose job it is to scientifically test and analyze new designs and materials for golfing clubs. He works for Golfcraft, a manufacturing firm based in Escondido.
The robot is the answer to all those who have ever left a course in disgust, muttering something about that not being a fit game for man or beast.
Mr. Analyst is the product of the tinkering of William J. Glasson, a golfer who also has concluded, from time to time, that it was a game fit not for man or beast.
Glasson started toying with his mechanical monster while trying to figure out scientifically how to lower his five handicap on the links. At the time he had graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was working on the Falcon missile.
"The monster was still a crude thing then," Glasson reminisces, "mounted on a wooden tripod. And I had to crank it manually to get it to work. At first it would only hit the ball about 125 yards. But, after making several modifications and adjustments it started belting it 200 yards and I got excited about its possibilities."
At a recent demonstration, the robot showed graphically how it has been improved by socking balls one after another in low, screaming trajectories to a distance of 400 yards on the fly. Even that isn't the most amazing aspect of its skills. Its accuracy at this distance is what is truly amazing. All the balls landed within a circle only 15 feet in diameter.
image source: Offbeat Golf (1998) by Bob Loeffelbein
Glasson was granted patent no. 3,373,612 for his invention. His patent drawings show a non-humanized version of his machine.
A 'mentally disturbed' robot at the World Fair in San Diego, 1935/36. A robot provides entertainment at the California Pacific Exposition in San Diego, [but] instead of giving the planned speech, it suddenly began to speak in a boisterous cabaret voice and afterwards emitted the sounds of an orchestra. After a little bewilderment the cause for this 'mental confusion' was discovered: due to a circuit error, the robot had transmitted the program of the exhibition's broadcast station. The photo shows the robot during a thorough inspection of its speech organs and its circuits.
WABOT-2 was created in the early 1980s, but I can't find any info on what's become of him since then. Whoever now owns him should be renting him out to play at weddings and funerals — recoup some of that $1.2 million it cost to build him.
ADDENDUM: the link is down as of mid-day May 20, but since the site is a longstanding page, I assume the outage is temporary and am leaving the link in place.
The opening few minutes are a press release for the company that created the exhibit. "Robo Show" begins at the 5:40 mark, and "Flower Planet" at minute 13:00. State-of-the-art stuff for thirty years ago.
In 1977, Topps issued a set of Star Wars trading cards. The set included one card that would, arguably, become the most infamous card it ever printed. This was the so-called C-3PO 'golden rod' card — so called because it seems to show C-3PO in a state of prominent arousal.
First, Topps not only really did issue this card... it printed a lot of them. This isn't a rare card.
Second (and to me this is the most remarkable thing), no one involved in the creation of the card noticed its most salient feature until after it had been released and word started to spread among card collectors.
Finally, there's no evidence that the card was the work of a rogue artist. The most compelling theory about what happened is that a panel on the side of C-3PO's armor plating must have accidentally fallen open, and was in exactly the right position to create the illusion of robotic arousal. And then, for whatever reason, Topps selected that image, out of all the possible ones, to print.
Eventually Topps released a corrected version of the card (below). Apparently this corrected version is rarer, and more collectible, than the original. Though, ideally, a collector would want to have both.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.