William Shatner on robots (1984)
- Thread starter Unicron
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Well, that was kind of ‘hypnotic’ and ‘trippy’ to watch…
Does he know anything about… ‘website robots’ and ‘spam-bots’ though or is his expertise purely ‘industrial’ and ‘mechanical’??
Did you know that the word ‘robot’ is derived from the Czech word ‘robota’ which was once used to describe actual people not machines? In particular… ‘forced’ labour. A little birdy told me that it originated from the old Slavic word ‘rab’ apparently which means ‘slave’. Robot is a recently made up word but still a word none the less. It is a… ‘future word’.
This is why I prefer the word ‘Android’ to ‘Robot’.
Does he know anything about… ‘website robots’ and ‘spam-bots’ though or is his expertise purely ‘industrial’ and ‘mechanical’??
Did you know that the word ‘robot’ is derived from the Czech word ‘robota’ which was once used to describe actual people not machines? In particular… ‘forced’ labour. A little birdy told me that it originated from the old Slavic word ‘rab’ apparently which means ‘slave’. Robot is a recently made up word but still a word none the less. It is a… ‘future word’.
This is why I prefer the word ‘Android’ to ‘Robot’.
Ok, admit it, when Shatner rasied his open hands towards the camera you were all wating for Janice Lester to swap bodies with him again. Lol
Kirk's ex from Turnabout Intruder, the last TOS episode
Oh yes, I don’t think I ever fully watched that episode you know. Is it the one where Kirk does a body swap? I think it’s one of the episodes that I turned off half way through, like the Mudd episodes. Was it such a bad episode that they had to cancel the series after airing it? I’ll get to it again one day and appreciate it as an adult.
How does it stand up against All Good Things and other series finales?
lol
Oh yes, I don’t think I ever fully watched that episode you know. Is it the one where Kirk does a body swap? I think it’s one of the episodes that I turned off half way through, like the Mudd episodes. Was it such a bad episode that they had to cancel the series after airing it? I’ll get to it again one day and appreciate it as an adult.
How does it stand up against All Good Things and other series finales?
Its way better!
I mean I can't remember what happened in All Good Things.. I think it was bland, bland, bland, Picard lays poker with the crew after 7 years. So obviously not all that good .. (things).
And Turnabout Intruder is certainly better than Enterprise's last episode but what episode in any series wasn't?
It was just another episode, nothing special, so not really comparable to the various series finales.Oh yes, I don’t think I ever fully watched that episode you know. Is it the one where Kirk does a body swap? I think it’s one of the episodes that I turned off half way through, like the Mudd episodes. Was it such a bad episode that they had to cancel the series after airing it? I’ll get to it again one day and appreciate it as an adult.
How does it stand up against All Good Things and other series finales?
It also just dawned on me that the little robot has shown everyone who goes to conventions a easy way of getting a autograph from Shatner, by disguising oneself as a robot, that way you don't have to worry about which Shatner you are going to meet, the pin out hand granade Shatner, mellow bongo playing Shatner or "I'm captian KIRK!!!!", Shatner. lol
Oh yes, I don’t think I ever fully watched that episode you know. Is it the one where Kirk does a body swap? I think it’s one of the episodes that I turned off half way through, like the Mudd episodes. Was it such a bad episode that they had to cancel the series after airing it? I’ll get to it again one day and appreciate it as an adult.
How does it stand up against All Good Things and other series finales?
Yes, dramatic television series in the 1960s generally didn't have a special finale episode meant to wrap things up and wind things down to a close for the whole series. "Route 66" and "The Fugitive" did, but those were exceptions. Oftentimes a season would just end with a typical episode, and then the show wouldn't be renewed for another season. And that was it.
Star Trek's cancellation was a business decision based on perception of viewership levels, expenses, and probably other factors. I can't recall the details, but I think the decision to cancel was made final before Turnabout Intruder was finished filming. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, cancellation definitely wasn't the result of this episode in particular.
Kor
I can’t wait to find the allegory in ‘Turnabout Intruder’ sometime next year when I finally get to it.
As this thread is a ‘robot’ themed thread, who can tell us all of the ‘robot’ themed episodes that we have to look forward to in the Star Trek TOS run?
Off the top of my head:
I, Mudd
The Ultimate Computer
Requiem for Methuselah
Was Nomad actually a robot though?
I’m surprised that as Star Trek was set in the future it did not end up having more robots in it. Perhaps they were expensive to make on a tight budget? This is why androids prove good from a production perspective; just paint a man (or women like Lal) white and stop him (or them) talking with contractions and ‘boom’… Android.
I actually *love* robots. I build them at work sometimes. 
As this thread is a ‘robot’ themed thread, who can tell us all of the ‘robot’ themed episodes that we have to look forward to in the Star Trek TOS run?
Off the top of my head:
I, Mudd
The Ultimate Computer
Requiem for Methuselah
Was Nomad actually a robot though?
I’m surprised that as Star Trek was set in the future it did not end up having more robots in it. Perhaps they were expensive to make on a tight budget? This is why androids prove good from a production perspective; just paint a man (or women like Lal) white and stop him (or them) talking with contractions and ‘boom’… Android.
I actually *love* robots. I build them at work sometimes.
I can’t wait to find the allegory in ‘Turnabout Intruder’ sometime next year when I finally get to it.
As this thread is a ‘robot’ themed thread, who can tell us all of the ‘robot’ themed episodes that we have to look forward to in the Star Trek TOS run?
Off the top of my head:
I, Mudd
The Ultimate Computer
Requiem for Methuselah
Was Nomad actually a robot though?
I’m surprised that as Star Trek was set in the future it did not end up having more robots in it. Perhaps they were expensive to make on a tight budget? This is why androids prove good from a production perspective; just paint a man (or women like Lal) white and stop him (or them) talking with contractions and ‘boom’… Android.
I actually *love* robots. I build them at work sometimes.
Not necessarily a main theme of the episode, but in WNMHGB, the lithium cracking station on Delta Vega was fully automated. That implies some kind of robotics. Probably nothing too sophisticated, more along the lines of what they use in car manufacturing.
Kor
I couldn't see the video but I did listen to it, interesting.
When I was a lab technician, I was put in charge of running and maintaining a robot for a while in a physical testing lab in the late '80s.
The robot was just a simple robot arm with shoulder, elbow, wrist and rubber padded grips which served as its hand.
One of our standard tests was called the flexural modulus test which simply put, tells how much energy it takes to bend a piece of plastic or other solid materials. This test would take about six minutes to run, meaning you would have to sit around for six minutes waiting to put the nexst test specimen into the test machine or run back and torth between two testing machines.
So my employer bought a robot arm to do the job of performing the flex test. It was programmed to grab a test bar from a stack, put it in the test machine and when finished, grab the tested bar and drop it into a trash bucket and repeat until it ran out of test bars, this could take up to eight hours. The robot and the testing machine were both run from an early IBM PC, an AT I think, it was so long ago. That PC had ISA slots, PCI hadn't come out yet and the hard drive, hold onto your hats people, could store up to a gigantic, whopping 40 megabytes!!
People were always fascinated by this robot arm and always laughed when it would neatly drop the tested bars into the trash can.
Robert
When I was a lab technician, I was put in charge of running and maintaining a robot for a while in a physical testing lab in the late '80s.
The robot was just a simple robot arm with shoulder, elbow, wrist and rubber padded grips which served as its hand.
One of our standard tests was called the flexural modulus test which simply put, tells how much energy it takes to bend a piece of plastic or other solid materials. This test would take about six minutes to run, meaning you would have to sit around for six minutes waiting to put the nexst test specimen into the test machine or run back and torth between two testing machines.
So my employer bought a robot arm to do the job of performing the flex test. It was programmed to grab a test bar from a stack, put it in the test machine and when finished, grab the tested bar and drop it into a trash bucket and repeat until it ran out of test bars, this could take up to eight hours. The robot and the testing machine were both run from an early IBM PC, an AT I think, it was so long ago. That PC had ISA slots, PCI hadn't come out yet and the hard drive, hold onto your hats people, could store up to a gigantic, whopping 40 megabytes!!
People were always fascinated by this robot arm and always laughed when it would neatly drop the tested bars into the trash can.
Robert
The way they move reminds me of the robot in Saturn 5, quite eerie, and do we really want to be pushing them over with sticks, as one day one of them is going to turn round and grab that stick. Lol
That robot reminds me of the old saying, "The Cylons were created by Man. They evolved. They rebelled..."
The horror when the robots at the start are slowly spelling out 'ROBOT'... I hoped they'd finish at T and not go ahead to S and then it plonked down an I. My heart sank as I realised it wasn't over.
The shit we used to watch, huh? Well, I know the 6 degrees of freedom that a typical industrial robot had in 1984 now.
Probably no-one remembers it, but not reminds me of the spoof edu-videos made some time ago titled 'Look Around You'. Again, all searchable on Youtube and very funny.
The shit we used to watch, huh? Well, I know the 6 degrees of freedom that a typical industrial robot had in 1984 now.
Probably no-one remembers it, but not reminds me of the spoof edu-videos made some time ago titled 'Look Around You'. Again, all searchable on Youtube and very funny.
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