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Professor Simon Schaffer examines a rare forerunner to the modern-day programmable computer, in the form of a cute little boy, known as “The Writer Automaton.” It was created by one of the finest Swiss watchmakers of his day, Pierre Jaquet-Droz in the late 1700s and it is a cute little robot that can actually still write notes in pretty script to this very day. I guess you could say that it was fabricated long prior to “planned obsolescence”!
Professor Schaffer believes that the watchmaker’s intent, in creating this mechanical marvel was to “mechanize reason and to automate the passions” but no one is sure.
I’m certainly not sure why anyone would want to automate the passions – especially in the form of a little robot boy that writes – but it is a fascinating and incredible feat of machinery, given the time it was created.
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