Klatu the Household Robot (1977)

When I was a wee lad, I would read about robots like this in library books (which I apparently cannot successfully Google.) I remember seeing pictures of this specific one, and others[0]. Robots were kind of a thing in the late 70s and early 80s apparently.

One I've always liked was Westinghouse's Electro[1]. It smoked cigarettes because of course it did, and looked and acted exactly the way you would imagine an old-school sci fi robot would, and even had a primitive (and a bit deceptive) system to respond to "voice commands" [2].

AROK[3,4] was also really cool. That is what a robot is supposed to look like.

That, or a sexy catgirl maid... but I digress.

Certainly not like an anorexic dalek [5,6].

It seems that as technology progresses, design homogenizes. If we do ever get to general purpose humanoid or semihumanoid robots, they'll probably be black rectangles like everything else. I still kind of want the blinkenlights and brushed steel of the future past, though.

[0]https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/147374-best-1980s-r...

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuyTRbj8QSA

[2]https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/e...

[3]http://cyberneticzoo.com/robots/1975-arok-ben-skora-american...

[4]http://www.theoldrobots.com/arok.html

[5]https://www.badger-technologies.com/

[6]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183303

The operative quote:

> I used to work for Tony Reichelt "Klatu". He was a lovable con-man – who really did love robots. We built a whole bunch of ‘em, but they were totally person operated (with the exception of some that were "chucky Cheese" type bots.) They were not pieces of crap either – they were high end wireless, aircraft aluminum framed, with custom fiberglass bodies by a ‘vette shop. Tony was a blast and a half – I’ve often wondered what happened to him.

I actually came across this by reading about it in Where the Wizards Stay Up Late. The release of Klatu set off a debate on Arpanet mail lists over what can and can't be said using the government-sponsored Arpanet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/19...

Totally unrelated, but this reminded me of a headline I read in the '70's proclaiming that the Beatles had made a new album using the band name "Klaatu". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaatu_(band)

Scrolling to the fifth image was a a shock!

Very cool!