|
 This is a real oddity. I
remember seeing Miss Honeywell at Earl's Court as a boy back in the
'60s and it was spooky when I discovered not long ago that it wasn't a
product of a child's imagination working overtime. Miss
Honeywell was an alleged robot that toured at trade exhibitions around
the world to hawk products for various companies, which meant that her
name changed to Miss Electra or Miss This-or-That depending on who she
was shilling for at the moment.
Miss Honeywell would be
presented to the audience without her head attached. The
presenter would lift up the lightweight body, turn it around and open
a small flap from which he would extract "mercury circuit boards" to
show to the crowd. The presenter would then place the body into
a small cabinet, close the doors, attach a control cable through a gap
at the foot of the cabinet, attach the head, and then cover it with a
plastic globe which he quickly spun around so that the head could be
seen through the side. Switches were thrown on a
control panel, the cabinet would open, and Miss Honeywell would step
out jerkily. She would then walk around the stage and show off
various features of the company's computers, or the kitchen of the
future, or whatever else was being touted while the presenter
exchanged banter with the prerecord "voice" of Miss Honeywell.
Miss Honeywell's
descendant
is still making the rounds at the trade shows today, but now it is
obvious what is the true nature of this machine. Needless to
say, this "robot" is, in fact, a conjuring trick, which, as an
ex-magician, I will not reveal. But what I find fascinating is that at
Earls Court I saw crowds of highly trained engineers watching the show
with rapt attention and it wasn't because they wanted to see the
latest that Honeywell had to offer. They were seriously wondering
whether or not this robot woman was real. Today we're impressed
by a robot taking baby steps without a tether because we know how
difficult a feat of engineering that is. In the '60s, however,
so little was understood about the problem outside of a tiny clutch of
specialists that the people you would think would know better were
half taken in by a robot that, if real, would be beyond anything we
even project having in twenty years. |
