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A character in Asimov's "I, Robot" (the book) had one of these. He even kept it in his pocket so he could type discreetly with his hand resting on his leg.

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Interesting. Was that only in the book? because I don't remember seeing that in the movie.

Yeah, the book is... quite different. It's a series of little stories told to the point-of-view character, a reporter, who has this device and records the stories as notes from an interview.

The stories are basically illustrations of how great the Three Laws of Robotics are, which is not surprising since Asimov invented them himself.

You mean how faillible they were? I recall many stories were about how someone died or had an accident because of overzealous or faulty interpretation of the laws... :)

Huh, maybe. I interpreted it as Asimov showing how perfect the rules were, in that the slightest tweak could lead to disaster.

No, the point was that they were detective stories about robot bugs. People who don't understand why people like "sitting in front of screens all day" should read that book to get a sense of how exactly looking at a core dump could be fun.

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